


The Inexplicable Disappearance of Prince Malkyn of the House of Keldor

by RenkonNairu



Series: The Fall Of... [2]
Category: He-Man and the Masters of the Universe
Genre: Angst, Canon Het Relationship, Daddy Issues, Father-Son Relationship, Gen, Insomnia, Kidnapping, Night Terrors, Nightmares, Obscure Character: Skeleteen, Obscure Character: Unnamed One, Obscure Characters, Parental Fear, Pre-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-06
Updated: 2021-01-28
Packaged: 2021-03-17 11:35:03
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 7
Words: 35,977
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28599309
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RenkonNairu/pseuds/RenkonNairu
Summary: Once upon a time, Skeletor wasn't always Skeletor.Once upon a time, Skeletor was Prince Keldor of the House of Miro.Once upon a time, Prince Keldor had a son....he doesn't anymore, though.
Relationships: Evil-Lyn & Skeleteen (He-Man), Evil-Lyn/Keldor (He-Man), Keldor & Randor (He-Man), Keldor & Skeleteen (He-Man), Marlena/Randor (He-Man), Skeleteen (He-Man) & The Unnamed One (He-Man)
Series: The Fall Of... [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2136825
Comments: 58
Kudos: 12





	1. An Eventful Morning

“Pa’pa…?”

Prince Keldor rolled over in bed, flicking the lights on with a wave of his hand. He rubbed his eyes to clear the sleep out of them and looked at the time. It was almost two in the morning. He turned his attention to the bedroom door, and the one standing in the frame. 

His son, a toddler approaching his fifth year. With Keldor’s blue skin and pointed ears, but his mother’s white hair and violet eyes. He stood in the doorway wearing his onesie pajamas and clutching the soft-toy Dylinx that he slept with. 

“Malkyn.” Keldor groaned, not at all pleased by being woken at such a late hour by the toddler. 

Next to him in bed, Lyn sat up. “What is it?” She asked her son. “What’s wrong?”

Malkyn only clutched his little stuffed kitty tighter to him, hiding half his face behind its head, and made a soft little whining sound in the back of his throat. He looked like he was on the verge of tears, but also knew that it would annoy his father if he did cry. Keldor often had to remind Malkyn that a Prince must be strong. Malkyn wanted his father to think he was strong. 

But he was also a child. His fifth birthday only a couple days away. 

“Was it your nightmare again?” Lyn guessed. 

Still hiding half his face behind his soft toy Dylinx, Malkyn gave an almost microscopic nod of affirmative. 

Keldor groaned, unimpressed and unsympathetic. “Malkyn, it was just a dream go back to bed.”

To this command, Malkyn just gave another closed-mouth little whine, this one louder than the first and more distressed. 

“Do you wanna come sleep with Ma’ma and Pa’pa?” Lyn offered her son, pushing the blankets back on her side enough for the toddler to climb in.

Malkyn gave another nearly microscopic nod from behind his soft toy before waddling across the room and climbing into bed. He crawled over his mother to be between his parents and settled down, hugging his stuffed Dylinx, feeling safe flanked by two grown adults that were both powerful sorcerers. 

“Lyn, no!” Keldor protested. This was not the first nice Malkyn had disturbed their sleep and climbed into their bed. “He needs to learn to sleep on his own!”

She ignored him and pulled the blankets back up, tucking them around her child before laying back down herself. “Turn the light off, Keldor, so we can go back to sleep.”

Groaning in irritation at his authority being ignored, Keldor flicked his wrist and the room went dark once more. He flopped back down against his pillows in irritation. 

Keldor was woken once more in the night, in the early hours of the morning, actually. Feeling unusually warm and unusually wet in the bed.

At first, he just groaned in his sleep and tried to reposition to avoid the wet spot. It was the wrong point in the month for Lyn’s cycle to have started in the night, but her timing had been off before, and it would not be the first time he’d woken up in pools of blood. Then the smell registered, and his eyes snapped open. Keldor sat upright, waved the lights back on, and pulled the blankets away. He glared down at the puddle of urine in the middle of the mattress, directly under his son. 

“Malkyn!” He shouted. 

Both the boy and Lyn jerked awake. 

Keldor climbed out of bed and rang for the servants. The bed needed to be stripped and the sheets washed. The mattress would probably have to be thrown out and replaced. “Unbelievable! Get out of bed, both of you.”

“Oh.” Lyn noted the puddle in the bed. She brushed her son’s white hair out of his face, he looked like he was about to cry again. “Malkyn, it’s okay. Let’s get you cleaned up.”

“It is not okay!” Keldor disagreed. He did not appreciate waking up in a pool of piss. 

But Lyn was ignoring him again. She gathered her child up in her arms and carried him to the bathroom adjoined to their bedchamber. 

Keldor also needed a shower. But he waited until his wife and son were done. Standing in the bedroom, arms crossed in disapproval. He glared at every servant who dared to even glance in his direction as they stripped the bedding, carried off the mattress, and whipped down the frame. 

It was so early in the morning; the sun was not even up yet; it was still dark outside. But Prince Keldor of the House of Miro would not be getting any more sleep. 

…

Randor watched his brother yawn for what might have been the ninth time that morning, and demand a servant bring him yet another cup of coffee. 

“You and Lyn have a wild night of sorcery and debauchery?” He teased. 

They were sitting on the steps that lead up to the dais, awaiting their father, the King, so that the morning’s audiences could begin. 

Keldor only glared at him from over the rim of his mug as he gulped the bitter drink down without any cream or sugar to ease the harsh flavor. He drained the whole mug before answering. “A sleepless brat that still pisses the bed.”

“Oh.” Randor snorted with amusement. He could only imagine his brother, the stern and proper Prince Keldor, First Born of the House of Miro and Heir to the Throne of Eternia, being peed all over by a tiny toddler that still slept with a binky. His snort turned into a laugh and Randor put a hand over his mouth to try and hide his amusement at his brother’s expense. 

Keldor was not nearly as amused as his younger brother. “Laugh all you want now.” He growled. “But your own wife is ready to drop your offspring any day now and you’ll have two messy little brats of your own to deal with.” Then, to a servant, he shouted, “More coffee!”

At that reminder, Randor’s snickering laughter at his brother’s expense petered out, to be replaced with a kind of manic tension. His mouth stretched into a smile, but his eyes were tight and nervous. 

“Marlena nearly gave me a heart attack this morning.” Randor confessed. “She woke up in pain from contractions. My sense must have left me completely because I just jumped out of bed and started shouting ‘ah, babies, ah babies’ until the midwives came in and started calming me down. Can you believe that? Marlena’s the one having the babies, and she’s sitting there on the bed clutching her belly -which is as big as a house- and I’m the one the midwives have to see to.”

The little anecdote did bring a small smile to Keldor’s lips. He remembered when Lyn was pregnant with Malkyn. No one ever bothered to educate men on the details of pregnancy and labor. He didn’t know that women could experience contractions days, or even weeks before it was time to give birth. Every time Lyn lurched in pain, clutching her abdomen Keldor thought his son was about to drop. It was comforting to know that the ignorance and hysteria held true for his brother as well. 

Better education on the subject was required, and Keldor had already put it on his list of mandates he was going to issue once he was King. Comprehensive sex-and-reproductive-education (for both sexes) as a requirement in schools. 

Randor gave his brother an affectionate slap on the shoulder. “Why do our wives even put up with us, eh?”

“Lyn wants to be Queen.” Keldor supplied without pause. 

Prince Keldor liked to try and convince everyone, that he and Evelyn Powers married for very practical, non-romantic reasons. 

Lyn was already an accomplished sorceress, claimed to be descended from the royal house of ancient Zalesia, and possessed incredible magical power; but she desired wealth and political power as well. She wanted to be Queen. She wanted to rule the world. 

Keldor was the eldest son of the current King, was Heir Apparent and due to become the next King. Keldor was going to rule the world. He had all the political power he could ever want. But he was also a diligent student of sorcery and desired greater magical powers. Powers that Lyn could show him access to. 

They each had exactly what the other wanted. An alliance between them was the only logical conclusion. Their marriage was a transaction. Nothing romantic at all. 

“Ugh.” Randor rolled his eyes, unimpressed by his brother’s insistence that he did not love his wife. “You are the most frustrating person to talk to about marriage, do you know that?”

“Oh, I’m sure that’s not true.” Keldor insisted. “Do you talk with father about marriage?”

King Miro happened to enter the throne room at that exact moment. He heard nothing of their conversation expect that last question. “Nobody talk to me about their marriage.” He commanded. “If I wished to be prattled at about marriage, I would have taken another wife.”

Both Prince’s stood when the King entered. 

“Father,” Randor began an explanation, “Keldor and I were just discussing-“

“I don’t care.” Miro informed his younger son. 

The older man slowed as he climbed the dais. Taking each step with ginger care, each one seeming more labored than the one before it. Miro was not a young man. He had two grown children who were old enough to have children of their own. He was a veteran of several wars and sustained injuries that still caused pains in his advanced age. 

Both Keldor and Randor offered to help their elderly father the rest of the way up the dais to his throne. 

“Get off me!” He pushed both men away, frustrated with the fact that they perceived him as so weak that he needed help getting up to his own damn throne. “I’m not some fragile invalid that needs to be carried!”

Both brothers backed off. 

“Of course, father.” Keldor nodded. 

Miro turned his attention to him. 

Keldor was his eldest son, born to him from his lover, not any of his legal wives. She had been a Gar woman, one from the blue-skinned race of Eternia, and Keldor inherited her coloring. Ebony-black hair, almost equally dark eyes, and blue skin. A deep and vivid shade of jewel-tone blue. 

It was a little harder to see on blue skin compared to the shades of pink, tan, or brown that humans came in, but upon inspection, Miro noticed the dark circles under Keldor’s eyes that betrayed a lack of sleep, and the slight shake of his hands from drinking far too much caffeine far too fast. 

“What’s wrong with you?” Miro demanded. 

“Nothing, father.” Keldor assured him. “I’m quite well. I just didn’t get much sleep last night, as Prince Malkyn was in need of me.”

Miro frowned with disapproval. “You coddle that boy too much, Keldor. If he is to be your heir, then he will need to grow some backbone. I never would have let you get away with how that boy carries on.”

“No, sir.” Keldor agreed. Miro would not have treated Keldor as gently as Keldor was treating his own son. 

Nodding, satisfied that he had imparted his sagely parenting advice to his son and fulfilled his obligation as a grandfather, Miro continued his labored climb up the stairs to his throne. 

Keldor and Randor did not sit back down on the steps until the King had settled in his seat. 

“Let’s start these bloody audiences already.” Miro commanded, impatient, as if the others hadn’t been waiting on him to begin with. “I didn’t climb these blasted stairs for nothing!”

Keldor sat through audiences with petitioners all morning. Farmers requesting the crown lend them livestock to graze on their lands for a year to refertilize their soil. Traders requesting special passes (and armed protection) to visit ports in the Dark Hemisphere to buy or sell their goods. Avionians and Andreenids entangled in a generations-long territory dispute, and hoping the crown could mediate the latest in a decades long list of grievances. 

Keldor sat through it all with his back straight, listening to each petitioner’s requests and paying attention to how his father dealt with each issue. One day he would sit upon that throne and be the one that had to make the decisions. 

After a few hours, they took a break so the pages could go over the King’s orders or get his signature on any new mandates that were a result of the audiences. They also brought a tray of figs and prunes for the King to snack on, and yet more coffee for Keldor. Randor, did not stay during the break. He rushed off the moment their father gave him leave. His wife was thirty-seven weeks pregnant with twins and he wanted to be at her side at all times. 

Watching his brother sprint out of the throne room, Keldor shook his head. The young fool. He’ll be singing a different tune once the twins were born and he was being woken six times a night by screaming babies that his wife refused to allow to sleep away from her side. When feces, and urine, and spit-up was constantly having to be cleaned up around his immediate vicinity. When his wife was suffering chapped nipples, fatigue, and a particularly strong melancholy brought on only after the birthing. 

Randor would be far less excited about fatherhood and his children then. Keldor was sure. 

As Randor dashed out, Lyn walked in. …And she looked lovely. Wearing a leotard in shades of pale lavender and dark purple, the emblem of a ram’s head -the crest of the royal house of ancient Zalesia- emblazoned on her chest, the spiraling horns of the ram coiling around her breasts to draw attention to their shape and size. Her short white hair was poofed out and fluffy from her early morning shower, the cut of her leotard high and showing off that delicious curve where her thigh climbed into her hip, and her golden-tinted skin had a particularly fetching luster to it. 

As much as Keldor insisted their marriage was nothing more than a transaction, an alliance of complementary desires and goals, it was not a completely cold marriage. There was an attraction between them. Evelyn Powers was a very attractive woman and Prince Keldor was not immune to such charms. He was immeasurably lucky that everything he wanted in a partner -sorcery skill, magical power, intelligence, and ambition- he managed to find in a woman who was also exceedingly beautiful. If Keldor were the romantic type, he could see himself falling in love with his wife for real. 

…If he were the romantic type. But he was not. 

Lyn was also carrying their son in her arms. 

She walked up to the stairs and sat on the steps next to him, settling Malkyn down between them. 

“Someone wanted to see their pa’pa.” She explained. 

“Lyn, I’m working.” Keldor reminded the both of them with irritation. He glanced up at his own father, trying to gauge the man’s approval or disapproval. His father began their morning by informing Keldor that he spoiled his son too much. 

Miro seemed utterly disinterested in his eldest son or his first grandchild. The King was happily ignoring Keldor and his family, while he munched on figs and called for a servant to bring him some wine to wash it down with. 

“You can’t just indulge every whim he has.” Keldor told his wife. “He can’t just demand my attention at any time that strikes his fancy. I will see him at lunch.”

Sitting on the steps between his parents and listening to his father say he basically did not want to see him, Malkyn issued another closed-mouth little whine. Pressing his lips into a thin line as he tried his best not to cry. Pa’pa hated it when he cried. Princes were not supposed to cry and Malkyn was a Prince. Pa’pa would be even more mad at him than he already was if Malkyn cried. 

From over the boy’s head, Lyn fixed Keldor with the most reprimanding glare she was capable of. 

Sighing, as if in defeat, Keldor tapped the not-crying toddler on the nose, causing him to blink with startlement. 

“My son, you have my attention for the moment.” Keldor informed him. 

A little subdued, Malkyn nodded. He reached into his pocket and pulled out an unevenly folded piece of paper. “I made this for you.” He said quietly, the child’s version of a whisper. “I’m sorry I wet the bed.”

Unfolding the paper, Keldor saw that it was a drawing. Rendered in brightly colored wax crayons. It was a little hard to make out, as most child’s drawings were. Malkyn also did not favor the lines and stick figures techniques that most children drew with. Instead, the young prince liked to pick a color and scratch out bold blotches in the shapes he desired. As a result, Malkyn’s art was always full of color, but not always easy to make out what it was supposed to be. 

This one was of a mostly rectangle-shaped blotch in the middle of the page, with a darker blue blotch on top of it. The blue blotch did look like it was colored in with some kind of shape intended. If Keldor tilted his head, it kinda looked like a figure. A figure in front of a gold rectangle… Keldor had no idea what he was supposed to be looking at. 

“Thank you, my son,” He said, “it’s very colorful.”

“It’s you, pa’pa.” Malkyn announced, still speaking very softly, but a little bit louder than his apology, he was made confident by his father’s praise. “You’re sitting on the throne because you’re gonna be King.”

“That’s right.” Keldor tousled his son’s white hair. “Ya know, I don’t think there’s a need to hire a royal painter to make my coronation portrait. This will be my official portrait when I’m King.”

“Ugh.” Keldor heard Miro mutter from the top of the dais. But it was hard to know if it was disapproval with Keldor’s praise of his child’s scribbled art, or his own figs and wine that he was voicing. “Keldor, go fetch your brother. If we don’t resume now then we’ll be stuck holding audiences all day.”

“Yes, sir.” Keldor stood. He tried passing the drawing to Lyn for her to put away, or whatever parents were supposed to do with their child’s drawings. 

But Lyn pushed his hand back to him, not taking the drawing. She gathered her child up into her arms. “That’s yours. Malkyn gave it to you.”

Keldor opened his mouth to tell her that he had no use for the scribble of crayon. He had work to do. Then he noted that the toddler in her arms was paying attention to him, not to her. He’d already nearly made his son cry twice this morning alone. 

Suppressing the urge to sigh, Keldor refolded the drawing, folding it much more neatly than the toddler originally had done, and slipped it into a pocket of his cape. “I’ll show it to Randor and Marlena. I’m sure they’ll be equally as impressed with the young Prince’s art.”

Lyn nodded with approval. 

Malkyn smiled, pleased that his father liked his drawing and accepted his apology. It was the first time Malkyn had smiled at all that day. 

Keldor left to go pry his brother away from his sister-in-law’s side.

When he did find Randor, Keldor wondered if he might actually have to forcibly remove his brother after all. Randor had his arms around his very pregnant wife, and looked to be trying to support her while she suffered another painful contraction. 

Marlena, however, was snarling at him to stop fussing! Leave her alone! Do you think I’m made of glass? Women have been having babies for millennia. I don’t need help! 

“But you look like you’re in pain.” Randor insisted. 

“Yes!” Marlena agreed. “Contractions are painful! But you freaking out every single time and acting like I’m about to go into labor in the middle of the corridor does not help! I already have to deal with my own body’s pain, I don’t want to have to worry about you and your stupid hysterical male nerves too!”

Keldor suppressed the urge to laugh and hid a smile behind his hand. He heard quite a bit about his own ‘hysterical male nerves’ back when Lyn was still pregnant with Malkyn. It seemed the condition was universal, and all men suffered from it when their mates were pregnant. 

Noticing his brother had appeared, Randor looked up to enlist his aid. “Keldor, you’ve had a kid. Please tell Marlena to let me help her when she has her contractions.”

“I did not have a kid.” Keldor corrected his brother. “Princess-Consort Evelyn had a kid. I merely supplied some basic genetic material and the best healthcare the crown could provide.”

Randor only frowned at his brother. 

“See?” Marlina taunted her husband. “Your brother’s on my si- ay- ah~h!”

Her statement was cut off she another contraction shook her body. Both arms wrapped around her swollen belly and she leaned forward in pain. Resting a shoulder on the wall for support. 

Randor leaned in again to help her. 

“I’m fine!” She barked at him before he could even touch her. 

Keldor only watched the scene. Marlena was already having a contraction when he came up to them. “Are they getting closer together?”

“She won’t let me near her.” Randor whined, indignant. 

“I meant the contractions, idiot!” Keldor barked. To Marlena he asked, “Are your contractions getting closer together?”

Marlena lifted her head just enough to glare at her brother-in-law. It was a point of pride for her not to admit that, yes, her contractions were getting closer together, and they were lasting longer each time too. While Randor was busy fussing as if she were dying, she was actually keeping the time. But that didn’t mean she was going into labor. Women had contractions all the time without going into labor. She wasn’t going into labor until her water broke. Then she would allow the men in her life to freak out and take care of her. Not before. 

Instead of explaining all this, however, all Marlena replied was, “It’s only the thirty-seventh week. It’s too soon.”

“Yeah, but I read somewhere that twins come early!” Randor argued, in his best ‘I think I’m helping’ voice. As if arguing with his pregnant wife who was currently in a great deal of pain was at all helping. 

“For the last time, Ran! I am not about to drop these babies in the middle of the hallways! Stop fussing over m-“ She was cut off when a great deal of fluid splashed from between her thighs, and soaking into the rug. 

All three of them stood there for a second, staring at the puddle. 

Randor seemed so shocked, he momentarily forgot he was freaking out. He just blinked at the mess between his wife’s feet. 

Keldor lifted one foot and tried to wipe the spattered tow of his boot on a clean segment of rug. 

“Okay, Ran,” Marlena finally relented, “I might actually be about to drop these babies in the hallway.”

“You mean-! The babies-!” Randor didn’t just resume freaking out, he doubled down on his freak-out. “The babies are coming! The babies are coming! My babies-! Ah, babies-! Someone! The babies are coming! Babies!” 

Marlena and Keldor shared one, identical, look of long-suffering exasperation. Marlena might be married to Prince Randor, but Keldor grew up with him. They were both of them tired. 

“Randor!” Keldor shouted to be heard over his brother’s own panicked shouts. “Take your wife to a bed and call the midwives. I’ll inform father that you won’t be returning to the audiences.”

“Right.” Randor nodded, as if suddenly remembering that there were people that could help him and know what to do. “Bed. Marlena needs a bed.”

He lifted his pregnant wife up into his arms and carried her away. 

Keldor rolled his eyes. Today had been an eventful day. …and it wasn’t even lunchtime yet.


	2. A Mother's Suspicion

After their shower, Lyn wrapped Malkyn in a towel and carried him across the corridor to his own room. She noted that the blankets of his bed were tossed off and the bed sported a urine stain of its own. 

“I’m sorry, ma’ma.” Malkyn muttered, speaking more to the towel he was wrapped in than to her. 

“These things happen.” She repeated. Lyn set the toddler down on his feet and walked over to his wardrobe to start pulling out his clothes for the day. “The servants will strip and clean this bed too. Ya know, when I was your age, my father asked me to strip my own bed when I wet it. He did the actual washing, I just had to make sure everything got in the hamper. Of course, it was just the two of us. We didn’t have an army of servants at our beckon-call to-“

Lyn cut herself off mid-statement when she turned around. 

Malkyn was still holding his towel around himself with one hand, with the other, he was trying to tug at the corner of the fitted sheet and pull the sheet off the mattress. 

“Malkyn, you don’t have to worry about that.” Lyn told him. “We have people to do that for us.”

The toddler paused and looked up at his mother with wide eyes. “Pa’pa says that a Prince should take responsibility for his mistakes.” 

“Well, I’m sure your pa’pa will be very proud of your noble effort.” Lyn assured him. “But for now, perhaps we should make sure the young Prince is dressed before he cleans up his mistakes.”

She knelt on the floor and held out his underwear for him to step into. 

As Lyn helped her son dress, the servants came in and stripped the bedding, flipped the mattress, and whipped down the frame while the Prince was distracted. By the time Malkyn was dressed, his bed was cleaned and remade, and Lyn handed him off to his nanny, who took him away for an early start to his morning lessons. 

Alone in the child’s room, Lyn crossed her arms over her chest and thought. 

Malkyn often had nightmares and terrors. It used to be that every guard in the palace would descend upon the Prince’s bedroom when he would cry out in the night. Alarms raised and security put on high alert because Prince Malkyn had a nightmare. It occurred so often, in fact, that King Miro stepped in and issued a formal decry that no member of the guard was to respond to a cry from the Prince’s room unless it was a summons issued by an adult voice. Let the boy’s parents deal with his night terrors, it should be their job now. 

That was the beginning of Keldor’s frustration with their son. He did not appreciate being woken in the night -every night- by a sobbing toddler crying about a floating wizard scaring him in the night. 

Always the same nightmare. 

A mysterious wizard, his collar so high and his hat so low that it seemed like he didn’t have a face. Just two sinister eyes, glowing out from the shadow under his hat. No legs either. Malkyn’s mysterious wizard’s robes just dangled over empty air. He hovered around the room or floated above the Prince’s bed at night. 

A bit of an uncommon nightmare for a child. When Lyn was younger, she had nightmares about her dolls not having faces. Once when she and Keldor were still in negotiations for the transaction that would eventually become their marriage (they both refused to call it a courtship, it was a negotiation), Randor once told Lyn about a nightmare he had of a singing frog. Marlena told her of the nightmares of Earth, of something called a ‘birthday clown’ chasing her up and down something else called ‘mall escalators’, or speaking in front of her class naked, or all her teeth falling out. 

Those were all normal nightmares to have. 

For a normal child, she supposed a scary wizard would also be a normal nightmare. 

But Prince Malkyn of the House of Keldor was not a normal child. His status as a Prince aside, Malkyn was the only child of two very powerful sorcerers, and with sorcery came certain sensitivities to the energy fluctuations and primal forces that made of the world. 

Not only that, but Lyn was the daughter of the Faceless One, whom -over a thousand years ago- was Nikolas Powers, the last King of Zalesia before its destruction. A powerful sorcerer, a former member of Preternia’s Council of Elders, and one of the Ancients. Keldor of the House of Miro was also a descendent of one of the Ancients. The most famous of the Ancients, in fact. King Grayskull. Malkyn was the result of two powerful lines of the Ancients’ bloodlines converging. Such a union was sure to produce a remarkable child. 

After so many nights of Malkyn’s nightmares, and the same nightmare every night, Lyn was starting to wonder if it was in fact a nightmare at all. 

There were all manner of fell things on Eternia that could find a use for the product of two bloodlines of the Ancients converging. …and children were vulnerable. 

Lyn walked a circle of the room, her arms still crossed. 

The royal palace of Eternos was a solid built building. Stone walls, covered in plaster, then papered over in wallpaper. Lyn had picked the paper out herself when she was still carrying Malkyn and the servants were getting the nursery ready. It was a dusky gold color that reminded her of the sands around Zalesia. Keldor detested the color, thinking it gaudy. He preferred cooler colors like greens or purples. 

She placed a hand to the wall, feeling for the seam in the wallpaper that concealed the bolt hole. As firmly built and solid as the palace was, it was still a palace. Meant to house a royal family and -should the climate of the times take a turn- designed to facilitate the escape of that family. 

Lyn pried open the bolt hole and leaned down to glare into the secret passage beyond. Only dust and cobwebs looked back at her. Not disturbed since the passage was first build generations ago. Nothing was getting into her son’s room that way. 

The door she didn’t bother with. Even if Miro had ordered none of the guards to respond to Malkyn’s cries in the night, they still would have noticed something sneaking into the Prince’s room from so obvious an entry. Similar went for the window. The guards were always very diligent about checking the doors and windows of the royal family they protected. 

But a sorcerer didn’t need doors or windows. 

A sorcerer could enter through any kind of portal. Even objects not meant to be portals. Or, if they were a powerful sorcerer, could simply teleport as they pleased. 

The palace was supposed to have magical barriers and wards in place to prevent such magical intrusions. But those wards and barriers were just as old as the palace itself and while some magic grew stronger with age, some spells and enchantments weakened over time, their power waning without tending care or recharge. 

Looking into the palace’s magical securities would take a fair amount of time and research. 

For the immediate moment, Lyn contented herself examining the objects in the room that could be used as portals. Malkyn’s wardrobe. His mirror. The gap between the bed and the floor. The triangle of shadow behind the door. All were places that a mediocre sorcerer, or low-level monster could use to enter a room. 

She cast a spell of revealing on each. None of them carried any residual traces of magic having passed through them before. 

For a brief moment, she thought about calling her father in Zalesia for his advice. But they hadn’t spoken since she left. Lyn didn’t even send him a message to tell him when she was married. Her son would be turning five years old in a few day’s time, and he wasn’t even aware he was a grandfather. Evelyn resolved not to call the Faceless One unless it was absolutely necessary. 

By the time Lyn completed her inspection of the room, it was time to check up on Malkyn and his nanny. 

The nanny had him seated at a desk and at first Lyn thought he was practicing his alphabet. But when she drew closer it was to see that he was drawing with crayons. Holding the royal blue color in a fist and scribbling a bold blotch over a yellow blotch he’d already colored in. Malkyn did not believe in lines and stick figures. He liked to player the colors on top of each other in thickly scratched blotches that sometimes resembled the shape of the thing they were supposed to be. 

“What’s this?” Lyn asked. 

Malkyn held up the masterpiece he was just working on and showed it to his mother properly. “It’s pa’pa.”

She supposed the blue blotch was vaguely person shaped. By the standards of children’s drawings, it was probably a good likeness. But that wasn’t actually what Lyn was asking. 

“I thought a little bit of time devoted to art would calm the young Prince before real lessons began, Your Highness.” Explained the nanny, answering what Lyn intended to know when she asked. 

Lyn nodded her approval. Art was therapeutic in multiple ways, and Malkyn had a disproportionate amount of stress for his young life. Drawing was a good outlet for him. It was safe for one, and actually healthy. Unlike other outlets available to young people on Eternia. 

There were several other sheets of paper that features bright color splotches on his desk. Clearly, the portrait of Keldor in front of the yellow square was not the first piece of the day. “Would you show me what you’ve made, Malkyn?” 

“Mm-hm.” He nodded, putting the blue crayon down and setting the drawing aside. Malkyn slid a stack of other papers across the desk to her. 

Picking them up, Lyn leafed through the stack. They were child’s drawings and they looked like child’s drawings. Which is to say, they looked like nothing. Just blotches of color in vague shapes. Some were human-shaped, a blue blotch and a yellow-brown blotch holding hands with a smaller blue blotch between them. Squares and rectangles that might have been an attempt at a wide view of the palace. Rolling green on the bottom half of one page with a blue sky and a yellow sun shoved into the corner of the page as if an afterthought. 

Then Lyn noticed a page sticking out of the waste pale where Malkyn had thrown it away. Bending down, Lyn picked it up to examine the rejected drawing as well. 

Rendered in mostly purple crayon. At first glance it looked like just a large smudge of purple across the page. But the crayon strokes were too deliberate for it to be just a scribbled smudge. There was an intension in the hand that moved the crayon. Lyn squinted at it and more detailed shapes emerged. A pointed hat for one. Below it, two dots of yellow that were outlined in black. Then back to the purple again. A brown line signifying a belt and giving the blotch a waist, showing that it was in fact a figure drawing, not just a blotch. And little bits of green on the hat, and the sides to signify ears and hands. 

Lyn pulled the drawing out and set the rest of the stack down. “What’s this one?”

Malkyn’s expression fell. Where he once looked content, drawing with his crayons, the terrors of the night forgotten, his eyes went tight, and he pressed his mouth into a thin line. Something Lyn had already noticed he did when he was trying not to cry. His voice was soft, barely above a whisper when he answered. “That’s the wizard.”

Lyn nodded. She already guessed as much. “May I have this one?”

“I don’t want it.” Malkyn informed her as his answer. He pulled the portrait of Keldor back to him and resumed layering on more heavy blue. “I wanna give this one to pa’pa. Maybe he won’t be mad at me anymore if I give him something nice.”

Lyn had her own opinions about Keldor being frustrated with their child. Children had nightmares. Children wet the bed. Those were normal things for children to do. Getting mad at children for being children was outrageously stupid. 

Then again, Lyn already knew that Keldor did not become a father because he wanted to be a father. Keldor became a father because as future King, he would need an heir. It was one of the terms in their negotiations. One male heir. 

At the time, Lyn wasn’t so keen on the idea of motherhood, but she wanted to be Queen. Evelyn Powers wanted power. So, she agreed, and performed rituals and cast magics to ensure that her child would be a healthy male, so that she would only have to do it once. But after carrying and birthing Malkyn, Lyn developed a very primal animal love for her child. 

She had hoped that after holding his son, Keldor would develop similar animal instincts for his offspring. But, unfortunately, he appeared to be immune to such base and primal attachments. Keldor continued to view Malkyn as a necessity of his crown, nothing more. 

But she still tried. You never know. Perhaps Keldor would look up at his child one day and those dormant paternal instincts would kick in. 

Lyn offered the boy her hand to walk with her. “Let’s go see pa’pa right now.”

The nanny looked like they were about to object, but the Princess-Consort outranked them, especially on matters pertaining to the Princess-Consort’s own child, so Lyn lead Malkyn through the corridors to the throne room. 

They just got to the double doors when Malkyn had a sudden burst of misgivings. Pulling away from the entrance to the throne room and hiding behind his mother’s legs. “What if pa’pa is mad I’m not in my lessons?”

“Then he can register his complaints with me.” Lyn told the boy. She was getting really tired of her son constantly worrying about disappointing his father all the time. Malkyn had enough to worry about with his night terrors. He did not need to be worrying about his father’s approval during his waking hours as well. 

Lyn scooped her child up into her arms and barged into the throne room. She didn’t care if they were in the middle of an audience or not. 

It was lucky they on a break, because otherwise Keldor definitely would have been annoyed with them. 

Lyn marched right up to the steps, sat down next to Keldor and planted their son between them. Making it impossible for Keldor to ignore the boy. “Someone wanted to see their pa’pa.”

“Lyn, I’m working.” Keldor groaned, speaking over Malkyn’s head. 

Somehow still managing to ignore the child that was practically pressed up against his hip. Then he looked up at the King, as if the old man’s opinion was more important than giving any kind of attention to his own child who would one day also be King. 

“You can’t just indulge every whim he has.” Keldor continued. “He can’t just demand my attention at any time. I will see him at lunch.”

Keldor might as well have just said that he didn’t want to see his son. It wasn’t in those exact words, but the meaning was clear enough. At least clear enough to the mind of a child. Malkyn issued another one of his closed-mouth little whines. Pressing his lips into a thin line as he tried his best not to cry.

Meeting her husband’s eyes over their son’s head, Lyn fixed Keldor with one of her most severe glares. Reminding him that Malkyn was more than just a necessity of the crown. He was Keldor’s own heir and would be King himself one day. He was a Prince, just as deserving of attention and respect as Keldor himself was. 

Sighing because he knew she was right, Keldor tapped the not-crying toddler on the nose, causing him to blink with startlement. “My son, you have my attention for the moment.”

Malkyn hesitated, for just a quantum of a moment. Just long enough for Lyn to notice. She was sure Keldor didn’t catch it. Malkyn reached into his pocket and pulled out the drawing he did that morning of Keldor sitting on the throne. 

“I made this for you.” He said quietly, the child’s version of a whisper. “I’m sorry I wet the bed.”

Lyn scrutinized Keldor for his reaction. The correct thing to do was to plaster a smile of his face and praise the child’s artistic talent. That was how any adult was supposed to react to a child showing them a drawing. It was a universally accepted rule. When a kid hands you a scribble of crayon on paper, you gasp, and coo, and gush your praise. 

“Thank you, my son.” Keldor finally said. “It’s very colorful.”

It was as close to praise as Keldor usually got. 

“It’s you, pa’pa.” Malkyn announced, still speaking very softly, but a little bit louder than his apology, he was made confident by his father’s praise. “You’re sitting on the throne because you’re gonna be King.”

“That’s right.” Keldor tousled his son’s white hair, actually showing affection for once. “Ya know, I don’t think there’s a need to hire a royal painter to make my coronation portrait. This will be my official portrait when I’m King.”

Lyn smiled, finally approving of something Keldor said to their son. That was the kind of praise you were supposed to give a child when they hand you a drawing. It was better than the royal portrait painter. That was how you gush over a kid’s crayon scribbles. 

“Ugh.” 

Lyn looked up when she heard Miro groan with disgust from the top of the dais. It didn’t take her long to figure out that the old King did not care much for the women of his household, children, or his half-Gar son and his quarter-Gar grandson. It did not take Lyn long to figure out that the only reason Keldor was heir was because he was born first, while Randor -Miro’s favorite son- was born second. Miro did not show affection to Keldor at all, and he did not like seeing Keldor show affection to his own blue-skinned son. 

“Keldor, go fetch your brother. If we don’t resume now, then we’ll be stuck holding audiences all day.” Miro commanded. 

Keldor all but leapt to his feet, always ready and willing to please his demanding father that could never be satisfied. “Yes, sir.”

He tried to pass Malkyn’s drawing back to Lyn, but she pressed it tighter into his hand. “That’s yours. Malkyn gave it to you.”

Keldor opened his mouth as if to object, but Lyn just continued to glare at him until he submitted. Folding the drawing and slipping it into a pocket in his cape. “I’ll show it to Randor and Marlena. I’m sure they’ll be equally as impressed with the young Prince’s art.”

Seeing his father keep the drawing, Malkyn finally smiled. A real smile. Of happiness. His father liked his drawing and was going to show it to Uncle Randor and Aunt Marlena. It was the first time Malkyn had smiled all day. 

Lyn watched Keldor exit the throne room, as eager to please his own father as Malkyn was to please him. 

When he was gone, Lyn turned her glare up at King Miro still sipping wine on his throne. 

Miro met her eyes, looking down on her from over the rim of his goblet. “Do you have something to say, Princess- _Consort_?”

“Many things.” She admitted. Not easing the severity of her glare. He knew she did not like him, and the feeling was mutual. 

The King did not like his eldest son’s choice in wife either. The only reason Miro had not forbidden their union was because Evelyn was of the blood of ancient Zalesia and Miro wanted that bloodline in his family. But that would not be enough to save her from her marriage being annulled and her child being legally declared a bastard if Miro decided her bloodline was not worth putting up with her if she decided to start mouthing off. 

“None that I would mention out loud.” 

“Then you have no reason to be here.” Miro informed her. “Collect your child and go. There is work to be done here and Keldor cannot have you or your child underfoot.”

Lyn gathered Malkyn back up into her arms and left the throne room. 

Not because she was told to, but because she did not want to spend any more time around the old fossil than she had to, and she didn’t want her child to suffer being around him either. Lyn would never admit it out loud, but she was counting the days until King Miro finally died and her own husband ascended as King. 

Keldor belonged on the throne of Eternia.

…

After dropping Malkyn off with his nanny to resume his lessons -his actual lessons, not more drawing- Lyn retreated to the sorcerers’ workshop and its attached library of magical tomes. Books containing information about the arcane that was too dangerous to shelve in the more public palace library. 

Evelyn and Keldor were pretty much the only residents of the palace who used to sorcerers’ workshop and its attached library. 

Holding Malkyn’s drawing in one hand, Lyn leafed through page after page of beastieries and monster manuals. Comparing highly detailed expert sketches, to her child’s crayon scribble. Looking for something that could be the monster that tormented her child every night. 

She didn’t know how long she spent poring over her research. All she knew was that she still hadn’t found anything by the time a servant knocked on the workshop door to inform her that lunch was prepared and was being served outside in the gardens. Prince Keldor was already there waiting for her. 

Slamming her book shut, Lyn pinned Malkyn’s drawing to a specimen board before leaving to attend lunch with her husband. 

The gardens of the palace of Eternos were beautiful. 

In an orderly and clinical way. 

Neatly trimmed trees in perfectly lined rows. Rectangular flower beds with sharp corners, all arranged at right angles from one another. A paved path running down the center of it all, ending at a circular fountain. All very neat, all very well kept. 

Nothing at all compared to the gardens of Zalesia, which had been allowed to grow wild and as they pleased for over one thousand years. Overall, Lyn did not regret her decision to leave Zalesia. She could not remain there, half of a total population of two. Her life just as stagnant and unmoving as the ruins in which she lived. But there were things about Zalesia she missed. The wild and untamed were one such thing, and she never missed them more than when she sat and ate lunch in the strict and rigidly maintained garden of Eternos. 

As the servant informed her, Keldor was already seated at a table that had been erected for them, and he was sitting alone. 

“Will your brother and Marlena not be joining us?” Lyn asked as she sat down. 

“Marlena went into labor a few hours ago.” Keldor announced as he bit into a biscuit. “We won’t see either of them for the rest of the day at least.”

Lyn nodded, understanding. She spent eighteen hours in labor with Malkyn, and that was with the aid of magic to move the process along. She could only imagine how long Marlena would have to labor without magical intervention and with twins, before her pains were over and she could rest. 

“I expect you’ll be taking on your brother’s duties in addition to your own while he is otherwise occupied.” Lyn guessed. When she labored with Malkyn, Miro did not excuse Keldor from his responsibilities as heir. But Keldor was not Miro’s favorite, Randor was. And Lyn had already noted that Miro allowed Randor more freedoms that Keldor did not get to enjoy. 

“As future King, they were always my duties. I’m just lucky enough to have a younger brother to help me out.” Keldor sighed. 

Reaching across the table, Lyn grabbed his hand and reminded him, “Keldor, you are allowed to delegate tasks to others. Not everything need rest solely on you. Your father asks too much of you. My father would never put on me the kind of pressure your father puts on you.”

Before he became the Faceless One, Nikolas Powers lived for his child. He made deals with the devil for his child. He let his city burn to ashes and be swallowed by the sands for his child. The Faceless One would never make the kinds of demands of Evelyn that Miro made of Keldor. 

But then, not all fathers were the same. 

Keldor pulled his hand away. “Your father is King of a ruin. He has no subjects to rule, he has no industry to oversee, he has no economy to manage. Your father never put any kind of pressure on your because he did not have pressures to apply. Zalesia is not a kingdom anymore, is not even a city anymore. It’s a ruin. An archeological novelty with one immortal ghost occupant.”

Lyn pursed her lips with displeasure. His assessment wasn’t untrue. Zalesia was not a kingdom in the strictest sense of the word anymore. Over a thousand years ago, it was a powerful city-state. But that was before it was destroyed by Serpos and its King cursed with immortality and the loss of his identity. Now, Zalesia was a ruin. Just a ram’s head gate rising up out of the sand, and a mostly buried city beneath. 

“A father’s job is to prepare his children for the day when he’s not around anymore.” Keldor continued. “Your father is immortal. What did he prepare you for, Lyn?”

“This isn’t about me.” She argued. 

“When you compare your father to mine, you make it about you too.” He informed her. 

She glared at him from across the table. 

“I don’t like the way your father treats you.” She announced. “And I’m already seeing you treat my son the same way. I want you to check yourself, Keldor. Because if you continue the way you are, I will take my son and go back to Zalesia. I will place my ruined city and my immortal father between us, and you will never see your son and heir again. Am I understood?”

Keldor seemed self-assured and unconcerned. He sipped his coffee calmly, with only a slight tremor in his hand from all the caffeine he’d been drinking all day. 

“You won’t leave.” He finally announced, setting his coffee cup down. “You’ve grown accustomed to a certain standard of living, here, with me. And you want something only I can give you. You want to be Queen.”

That was true. Evelyn did desire the power his crown represented. Keldor would rule the world, and the throne was big enough for two. 

Loath thought she was to admit it, even to herself, Keldor was right. She wanted to be Queen. She wanted to rule the world. When he was originally conceived, Malkyn was just a step towards that goal. After giving birth, her feelings about the child became much less business neutral and much more maternal. But Malkyn was still very much a business decision, and her marriage to Keldor was still very much a business arrangement. 

Her goals had not changed. Only her feelings about certain extra parties involved. 

“But, to appease you, my Princess, I will make an effort to be gentler with Malkyn. My father is hard on me because he feels he has to, but my father is also a product of his time, and the Great Unrest is over. We live in a gentler time and perhaps a gentler hand raising my son is more appropriate.”

It was the best compromise Lyn was going to get on the subject of Malkyn. 

Speaking of, she saw the nanny leading him out of from the palace. Holding the boy’s hand as she pulled him across the gardens to the picnic table where his parents sat. Malkyn was hugging his soft-toy Dylinx to him with his free hand. 

“Good, then you can start now.” Lyn hissed at him. Then smiled a dazzling smile at her son when the nanny finally got him to the table. 

The nanny lifted Malkyn into the booster seat that was already prepared for him. Malkyn seated his stuffed Dylinx toy on the table as if the doll were going to eat with them, then Malkyn immediately slouched in his booster seat. 

“Sit up straight.” Keldor commanded. 

Lyn kicked him under the table. 

He suppressed a nearly inaudible groan. Then plastered a plastic smile on his face. “You’re going to have two new cousins to play with soon. Won’t that be fun?”

“Uncle Randor says I can’t play with babies. They’ll be too little.” Malkyn informed his father. 

“You can play with them when they get a bit bigger.” Keldor promised. Malkyn would only be five years older than his twin cousins, that was not that much more than the age gap between Keldor and Randor. 

“How soon is that?” Asked Malkyn. 

“A couple of years.” His father supplied. 

“That’s not soon. That’s years!” To the mind of a toddler, two years was a very long time. That was almost half his life! “Can I play with Panthor?”

“No.” Keldor stated flatly. 

Panthor was Keldor’s steed. A massive Dylinx, even by the standards of the species, Panthor was large. Panthor carried Keldor into battle during the Great Unrest. Keldor watched the cat knocked over study warriors as if they were toy soldiers. He saw Panthor’s claws -that were as big as scimitars- rend flesh from bone. He had to pull limbs from between the Dylinx’s dagger-point teeth. Keldor did not want his son playing with Panthor. 

“But I-“

“I said no!” Keldor snapped. 

The fact that Lyn did not kick him again under the table told Keldor that -on that point, at least- she agreed with him. A giant apex predator was not a safe playmate for a toddler. 

“You have so many toy Dylinx to play with.” Lyn tried to placate her child. One of his Dylinx toys was sitting at the table with them, in fact. 

Malkyn only leaned back in his booster seat and sulked. His parents just didn’t understand! Toys were not the same as a living, breathing animal. Something that was warm, made sounds when you pet it, had a wet nose, purred! Pa’pa got to play with Panthor whenever he wanted! Except pa’pa called it ‘training’. As if either weren’t already trained. 

“Eat something.” Keldor pushed a plate of sliced vegetables and dip closer to the boy. 

Malkyn wrinkled his nose at the vegetables and half-climbed into the table to reach over and grab a biscuit from the tray that was closest to his father. 

The indignant sound Keldor made, one would think the boy had stolen the treat off his plate!

Lyn plucked the buttery backed good out of her son’s hand before it could reach his mouth and served him some cut up chicken, small triangle cucumber sandwiches, and apple slices. “You will eat real food before you have desserts.”

With a huff of defeat, Malkyn flopped back down in his booster seat and grabbed a cube of chicken with his bare hand. How rude of his parents to make him eat healthy! 

Lyn met Keldor’s eyes across the table, silently urging him to say something to his son. Have one nice interaction with the boy when he wasn’t groveling for forgiveness over something that all children did and was perfectly normal. 

For a half a second, Keldor flashed her a clueless and pleading look in reply. He didn’t know how to be nice to children. His father never showed him any affection until he was old enough and strong enough to lift a sword, and even then, it was just a light punch in the shoulder with an accompanied ‘atta boy’. Keldor didn’t know how to show affection to a toddler. 

“You’re fearless, my son.” Keldor finally announced. “To want Panthor as a playmate. I know seasoned warriors who see my cat and faint.”

“But Panthor’s not scary!” Malkyn exclaimed, bits of chicken falling from his mouth as he spoke. 

“Don’t talk with your mouth full.” Keldor reprimanded. Then switched back to the tone of praise he was using when he called his son ‘fearless’. “Which is why I’m confused when you come into our room at night from your nightmares. Panthor is real and can harm or kill you. Your nightmares are not. They’re all in your head, Malkyn, they can’t hurt you.”

“Keldor…” Lyn warned. Why couldn’t he just stay on the topic of how their little toddler felt happy and comfortable with a beast that made grown men tremble in fear? Why couldn’t Keldor just content himself with the fact that Malkyn was ballsier than half the Eternos Guard? Why did Keldor have to be an asshole about everything to their son? Why?

Malkyn pushed his plate away, suddenly not feeling hungry anymore, not even for the sweet biscuit his mother was still holding hostage.

“The wizard is real.” He insisted. 

“It’s just a figment of your imagination.” Keldor continued to argue. 

Malkyn hiccupped and took a deep breath, then pressed his lips together. Another effort not to cry. He grabbed his stuffed toy Dylinx off the table and hugged it close to his chest. 

“You know what!” Lyn interjected. “Keldor, you don’t have to worry about Malkyn coming in and waking you up tonight. Because I am going to sleep in Malkyn’s room with him. I’ll keep our son safe from his Unnamed wizard, and you can get an uninterrupted night’s sleep.”


	3. First Sword Lesson

Malkyn’s child-sized bed was really much too small for an adult. With her back bent and her knees drawn, Lyn coiled around her son and found it impossible to sleep. 

That was fine. She wasn’t interested in sleeping anyway. Malkyn insisted his Unnamed wizard apparition was real and it was possible that his combined bloodlines made him more sensitive to magical fluctuations that the average sorcerer could not detect unless they were looking for it. So, Lyn remained awake, her own magical senses peaked. Attuned and feeling the aether and energies in the room for anything that might be amiss. 

She was coiled like a spring. All wound up and ready to strike, should anything even try and distress her child. 

Her father betrayed the immortal King of the Snakemen for his child (twice). He summoned a god for his child. He snubbed the Council of Elders for his child. He let his city burn down to the sands for his child. 

What did this specter think Evelyn wouldn’t do for her own child? When that was her example. And the Faceless One had merely been a father. He did not have the primal, animal drive of a mother protecting her young. 

There was a crackle of power in the air. 

Lyn felt it as static, making her short hair stand on end. Only half-asleep, Malkyn tensed in her arms, hugging his stuffed Dylinx tighter. His terrifying Unnamed tormentor was coming for him again, he could sense it too. 

Staying as still as possible, Lyn gathered her own power in one hand. Keeping the other hugged around her child. 

She was ready to strike-

-when the sound of bells rent the air. Loud, cathedral bells. 

The crackle in the air disappeared, the static leaving with it. Both Lyn and Malkyn sat up in bed, and Lyn waved the lights on. There was nothing out of place in the child’s room except what was supposed to be there. 

And the bells were still ringing. 

Like they rung them when Malkyn was born. 

“What’s going on, Ma’ma?” He asked, rubbing his eyes. Being woken from something other than a nightmare for what was probably the first night in many. 

Lyn opened the door of his room and looked across the corridor. 

Keldor was similarly standing in the doorway to their own bedroom. His hair a rumpled mess, a house robe thrown loosely over his shoulders. “What the blazes is going on now!?”

“It’s Princess-Consort Marlena, Your Highness.” A guard tried to explain. “She’s given birth to the twins.”

And they were ringing the bells to celebrate. 

Keldor was unmoved and unimpressed with this news. He just looked tired. “Is anyone dead?”

“Not to my knowledge, Your Highness.” The guard seemed confused by the question. “As far as I know, both mother and children are healthy.”

Keldor nodded. “Then I’m going back to bed.”

He could congratulate his brother on having unprotected sex in the morning. It figured, the one night he wasn’t woken by his own noisy brat coming into his room, he was woken by Randor’s brood coming into the world. Keldor went back into his bedroom and slammed the door behind him. A few moments later, Lyn saw the glow of a magical barrier jump up over the door, and she recognized it as a magical barrier that was soundproof; to block the ringing of the bells. 

Malkyn tugged on Lyn’s hand. “Can we go see the babies?”

“In the morning.” She promised. “Your Aunt Marlena will be tired after giving birth. We should let her rest.”

Picking her son up, Lyn carried him back to his own bed and tucked him back in. 

The bells continued to ring, and so she cast a sound dampening barrier of her own. 

Lyn waited for that strange crackle of magic and static in the air to return, but it didn’t. Whatever Malkyn’s mysterious and Unnamed tormentor was, it was scared off by literally every living soul in the palace being woken and did not return again that night.

…

Marlena did look tired when Lyn went to see her, leading Malkyn by the hand, Keldor trailing behind them looking disgruntled and holding a cup of black coffee. 

The bedding was clean, no blood or other fluids, not even sweat. Marlena looked exhausted and the only reason she was awake at all was because one of her babies wasn’t in the bassinette by the bed, but instead held in the arms of her husband. 

Randor held one of the twins in his arms. The swaddling blanket was yellow, so there was no way to tell which twin it was, the boy or the girl. He was rocking the baby and cooing softly, the proudest smile on his face. 

One of Randor’s hands was also taped to a splint and wrapped in gauze. 

“Hey, guys…” Randor whispered, looking up at them with that same wide, proud, goofy smile on his face. “Shh~ Adora’s sleeping. Adam doesn’t want to; I’m trying to keep him quiet so his mother and sister can rest. Keldor, do you wanna hold your nephew?”

“No.” Keldor assured his brother and took another sip of his coffee. 

He got his fill of holding infants when his own son was that small. Infants were not pleasant things to hold. They were not cute. They were messy. They drooled, and spit-up, and peed in your arms, and shit in their own swaddling. Infants were disgusting. After his own son, Keldor planned to never have to deal with an infant again. 

“Aw, you don’t have to worry about hurting him because he’s so small.” Randor tried to reassure his brother. “He’s small because he was born early, but all twins are early, so he’s perfectly healthy. Duncan, take my brother’s coffee.”

A guard came up and pulled Keldor’s coffee mug out of his hand while Randor all but shoved the infant -Adam, apparently- into Keldor’s arms. 

“I don’t want-“ But it was too late. He was already holding his nephew. 

Adam groaned and fidgeted in his uncle’s arms. Keldor glared down at the baby. Adam was pink, and bald, with a round head that was too big for his own body. 

“Doesn’t he look just like me.” Randor whispered in awe. 

He was a baby. He looked like every other baby ever. Which is to say, he looked like a potato. 

Keldor just waited until Randor decided he had held the tiny creature long enough and could give the infant back. And he prayed to the Goddess that Adam didn’t decide to shit himself while Keldor was holding him. 

“What happened to your hand?” Keldor asked. 

“Oh, yeah, heh.” Randor scratched the back of his head with his uninjured hand. “The midwives said I was in the way and I should just sit down and hold Marlena’s hand. So, I was holding her hand, and, well, she’s got a strong grip, and…”

“…and I crushed three of the bones in his hand and popped a phalange out of place.” Marlena finished for him, sounding proud of herself to spite how exhausted she was. 

“Yeah…” Randor just beamed with pride. 

Lyn sat next to the bed and brushed some of Marlena’s hair out of her face. “Darling, you look terrible. Do you want me to kick all these useless men out of the room for you?”

“Mm, would be nice to get some rest.” Marlena admitted, moving and arm up behind her pillow and stretching. Then wincing with discomfort as her starch pulled something that was still tender from the birthing. “But as star-struck and bemused as Ran is, I need the extra pair of hands to help me if Adora wakes up.”

“You have people to do that for you.” Keldor reminded her as he tried to pass Adam back to Randor. 

But he knew Marlena wouldn’t listen. Right after giving birth, Lyn couldn’t stand to see anyone else holding her new baby either. She had a very short list of those who were allowed to hold Malkyn after he was fresh out of the womb. If anyone who was not on that list tried to touch her child -tried to even breath near him- she went absolutely feral. She wouldn’t even let the wetnurse help feed him, preferring instead to suckle him at her own breast. Even when she was too exhausted to even lift her head. 

Malkyn tugged on his uncle’s cape. “Can I hold the baby?”

Randor looked down at his nephew, not knowing how to answer. He didn’t feel comfortable with a toddler trying to hold his brand new child that was only a few hours old. 

“Later.” Lyn told her son. “I have to teach you how to hold them first. Babies are very fragile. There’s a special way you have to hold them otherwise you could hurt them.”

Malkyn looked down, disappointed and rejected. 

“Keldor, why don’t you take Malkyn out?” Lyn suggested. “Since you clearly don’t want to be here and I’m sure Malkyn would appreciate some quality time with his father.”

“I have work to do.” Keldor reminded her. He was future King. 

“King Miro has declared today a holiday.” Duncan announced from his guard position at the door. “In celebration of the twins’ birth. Everyone is excused from work today.” A pause. “Except for the Royal Guard, of course.”

King Miro never declared a holiday when Malkyn was born. 

Looking across the room, Keldor met Lyn’s eyes. She had her own opinions about King Miro and his preferential treatment of the non-blue members of his House. Opinions which she was not shy about voicing to Keldor in private. Declaring the birth of his younger son’s lily-white twins a holiday when he did not do the same for his elder son’s blue-skinned son and heir did lend some weight to these opinions. But Keldor wasn’t going to admit that out loud. 

It was a point of pride. 

Malkyn took his father’s hand, expecting to be led out of the room. 

Keldor looked down, almost as if he were surprised by the touch. He wasn’t used to being the one to hold the boy’s hand. 

Malkyn let go of his father’s hand almost immedietly and looked down at his feet instead. 

If anyone in the room saw this interaction between father and son, they all pretended they didn’t. 

Except for Lyn. She pursed her lips in disapproval and glared at her husband. 

“Ya know what!” Randor said suddenly, speaking a little bit louder than was wise with two newborns in the room. “Brother, I think it’s time we took Malkyn to the training yard. Every descendent of King Grayskull should know how to wield a sword, and now he’s got two younger cousins to protect!”

Passing baby Adam to Marlena, Randor took Malkyn by the hand. Then hooked his injured hand in Keldor’s elbow. 

“Malkyn is still too young for-“ Keldor began to object. 

But Randor was already pulling the both of them out of the room. “He’s never too old to spend a day outside with his dad and his favorite uncle.”

“You’re my only uncle!” Malkyn reminded him as he followed Randor out, hopping to keep pace with the older man’s longer stride. 

Once they were out, Duncan resumed his guard position by the door. 

Marlena leaned over and laid Adam down next to his sister. He wasn’t asleep, but he was calm and quiet. That was good enough. Marlena leaned back against her pillows with a sigh. “I am so tired…” She muttered. “But everything hurts, so I can’t really sleep much either. Not to mention I jerk awake any time either one of them makes any kind of sound.”

Lyn more than understood and sympathized. “Want me to mix a potion for you to sleep?”

“Hmm, I just might take you up on that.” Marlena admitted. Then groaned, muttering her next question, as if it were more of an afterthought. “Miro didn’t declare a holiday when your son was born. I remember because Randor was so excited, he’d never seen a baby before. But Miro said that he and Keldor both had responsibilities to their crowns that couldn’t wait on an infant. Did Keldor even get to hold his son the day he was born?”

“Keldor is not as excited by babies as Randor is.” Lyn answered hoping it was diplomatic enough. 

“Still, it’s weird that Miro would make a holiday for my children but not your child.” Marlena continued. “After all, Keldor will be King next, and Malkyn King after him. Having a national holiday for a pair of children that will just be high ranked nobility instead is… strange. Is that a custom on Eternia?”

No. No it was not a custom on Eternia. There were no special honors bestowed upon second born sons, or the children of second born sons who were not meant to inherit their grandfather’s titles. Miro’s preferential treatment of Randor and Randor’s children had nothing to do with quirky cultural customs, or the line of succession. Miro’s favor for Randor and Radnor’s descendants had to do with the fact that Randor and Randor’s children looked like Miro, which Keldor and Keldor’s son… …had the wrong coloring… 

Lyn didn’t say any of that to Marlena, of course. Out loud she just reminded her, “I grew up in an isolated ruin with an immortal Ancient. I didn’t meet my first modern Eternian until I ran away from home as a teenager. I am not the person to ask about strange customs.”

Marlena made a soft grunt, acknowledging that she heard. “What about you, Duncan, is this a normal thing to you?”

“It is… uncommon, Your Highness.” The guard admitted. 

It was uncommon. Uncommon enough for people to notice. King Miro preferred his younger son over his heir. That did not inspire confidence in the heir. 

Marlena groaned again. “Ya know, Lyn, I think I would like one of your magic sleeping potions. Something mild, in case I need to wake up for them. Maybe just something to take the edge off.”

“I can do that.” Lyn nodded and stood. 

…

The training yard was already occupied when Randor arrived outside, with Keldor and Malkyn in tow.

Raqquill Rqazz, a Beastmen under the crown’s employ. He oversaw the many animals kept in the palace, and was currently putting Panthor through some exercises. While Panthor might have been tamed, that did not make him ‘domesticated’. He was still a mostly wild animal and needed to be outside, needed movement and action. Or else he would find his own diversions. Keldor woke up with some kind of dead animal in his bed more than once before they figured that out. 

At the moment, the Beastmen was waving a stuffed bird on the end of a very large stick. Always yanking it just out of the way right when Panthor pounced. It gave the massive cat the excitement of hunting without the mess of actually killing anything. 

“Panthor!” Malkyn tried to run up to the giant Dylinx. 

But Keldor stopped him. Grabbing his son by the arm and scooping him off his feel. It was one of the very few times Keldor ever picked his son up and held him. The toddler’s whole body was the size of only one of Panthor’s paws. Keldor trusted his feline steed with his own life, but not his son’s life. 

“Do not run up on a giant apex predator!” Keldor shouted unnecessarily. Holding the boy in his arms, Malkyn’s face was only inches from his own. 

The toddler hugged his own Dylinx toy tighter to him and tried not to cry. 

“By the Goddess, Keldor!” Randor exclaimed. “You’ve had five years of practice. How are you still so bad with children?” Randor held his arms out to take Malkyn from his brother. “Come here, nephew, I’m sure your pa’pa didn’t mean to scare you. You just scared him is all. Panthor is our friend, but he’s still an animal and you can’t just run up and startle an animal. I’m sure your pa’pa just didn’t wanna see you hurt.”

Randor bounced the toddler on his hip until Malkyn calmed down, no longer looking like he was trying not to cry. 

Keldor watched all of this, feeling deficient in some way. 

It was true, he never really liked children. Everyone assured him that he would feel differently about his own child, and he supposed he did feel differently about Malkyn than he did about ‘children’ in the more general sense. 

He remembered being excited when it was confirmed that Lyn was pregnant. More than just the satisfaction of knowing that she was holding up her end of their transaction and that his line of succession was assured. He was excited. And he was fascinated too. He remembered placing his hand to her belly and feeling something kick at his palm from within her. And he remembered being terrified and hysterical when Lyn went into labor, and she was screaming from a pain that even the strongest magics couldn’t fully dampen. 

But then Malkyn was actually born, and he was small and fragile. Nobody had ever bothered to tell him before how fragile babies were. That if they were just held the wrong way their necks could snap, and they would die. Keldor was terrified to hold his son for the first few weeks of his life, paranoid that after spending a lifetime disliking children that he would hold his own child wrong and instantly kill him. But it wasn’t just that. 

Infants were also needy and noisy. Crying as loud as his little lungs could, screaming for every discomfort and inconvenience. Crying when he was sleepy and needed to be put in bed. Crying when he was awake. Crying when he was hungry. Crying when he ate too much. Crying every time he pissed or shit himself and his diapers needed to be changed. Sometimes just crying for no reason at all, a phenomenon that was so common with babies there was even a word for it -colic. 

Keldor never liked children, he was glad to have an heir of his own, but he didn’t really like his own child much either. He liked Malkyn more than the average child, but he still longed for the day when Malkyn was old enough that Keldor wouldn’t have to treat him like a child. 

Still holding Malkyn, resting most of the boy’s weight on his hip and supporting him with his uninjured arm, Randor waved to the Beastmen with his bandaged hand. “Hey, Raqquill, do you think Panthor would let Prince Malkyn pet him? Or is he too riled up?”

The Beastmen looked up at them. Then nodded. “He’s calm enough when Prince Keldor is here to manage him, Your Highness.”

Sure enough, as soon as the giant cat noticed Keldor was near, Panthor bounded over to the trio and rubbed his head against Keldor’s whole upper body. 

Keldor had to plant his feet to keep from being knocked over by the Dylinx’s affection. Panthor never seemed to remember the disparity in their sizes. When he was still a cub, Keldor was so much bigger than him. Now he was fully grown and Keldor was only a third Panthor’s size. 

Scratching the giant cat along the sides of his face and down his neck, Keldor rubbed his own face against the Dylinx. For some reason, it was always so much easier for him to show affection to animals. His own animal especially. He often said ‘cats are better than people’ and Panthor was his cat. 

Coming up beside Keldor, Randor held Malkyn high enough to be able to pet the giant cat as well. 

“Remember to let him smell you first.” Randor told the toddler. “Panthor likes your father, but he doesn’t know you as well. He needs to recognize that you smell like him.”

Panthor did pause in rubbing against Keldor to sniff at the toddler, and Keldor felt a sudden and inexplicable stab of panic. Panthor’s nose was just above his jaws, and so when his nose drifted closer to the child, so too did his dagger-sized teeth. Keldor trusted Panthor with his own life, but seeing that massive predator’s mouth so close to his son filled him with a strange and irrational fear that he did not like. 

Then Malkyn reached out and patted Panthor on the nose. 

Panthor seemed to like this, and he licked at Malkyn’s arm, grooming the little Gar-cub. 

Moving before he was even consciously aware that he made the decision to, Keldor reached out with both arms and plucked his son from his brother’s arms. “I think that’s enough!”

“Aw…” Malkyn whined. “Panthor was just about to be my friend.”

“Panthor is a soldier.” Keldor reminded him. Then to the Beastmen, “Raqquill, do you have any other beasts on your schedule today, or could you take Panthor out on the plains? I think he might like to hunt.”

“I have no schedule today, Your Highness.” The Beastmen informed him. “The King has called today a holiday. I just let Panthor out of his kennel because I felt it should be a holiday for him too.”

“In that case, would you mind taking Panthor out to the plains?” Keldor amended, remembering that his father decided that all of Eternos should celebrate the birth of Randor’s children. 

He remembered Lyn telling him that she didn’t like the way his father treated him. But it wasn’t really about the way Miro treated Keldor, it was the way Miro treated Randor. Which was preferential. He convinced himself that it didn’t bother him. His father loved him; he was sure. Keldor was his first born after all. That meant something. Miro was harder on him because Miro expected more of him. That was why it sometimes seemed like Randor got special privileges that he did not. But, just because it didn’t bother him, did not mean that he didn’t notice. 

“I can do that.” The Beastmen assured him. Then clicked his tongue and made a ‘psspsspss’ sound at Panthor. “C’mon, cat, your master has decided to let you out for real.”

Randor opened his mouth to say something to Keldor, but then he noted just how he was holding the boy. One arm supporting him, the other up almost shielding the boy. As if to protect him from a dangerous animal. Keldor might not be good with children. He might not know how to talk to children, or how to treat children like children instead just shorter adults. But at least he had some kind of paternal instinct to protect his child. They were buried under cynicism and repression of his feelings about their own father, but they were there. 

Keldor did love his son. He just didn’t know how to show it. 

Just like he couldn’t admit that he was in love with his wife. 

“C’mon.” Randor said to both of them. “Let’s get little Prince Malkyn started on his sword training.”

Crossing the training yard, Randor went over to an equipment shed and started rummaging through it. 

“Malkyn is too young for sword training!” Keldor shouted after his brother. 

Randor came sprinting back up to them, carrying a weighted stick meant for building arm strength and building the right kind of muscle to actually swing a real sword without fulling something. “Keldor, set him down. If he’s gonna learn to wield a sword, he’s got to stand on his own feet.”

Keldor blinked, almost as if he didn’t realize he was still holding his son. He set the bot down, unfastening his cape so the boy’s arms would be free, and taking his stuffed toy from him. Keldor folded the cape neatly and set it down on the bleachers, laying the cuddly Dylinx binky on top of it. 

Malkyn went running up to the bleachers and sat his toy Dylinx up instead, as if the stuffed animal was going to watch him train. He gave the soft kitty toy an affectionate pat on the head then ran back to his uncle for his first sword lesson. 

Keldor rolled his eyes. He did not understand his child’s need to carry that thing everywhere he went, and when he had to let it got, to sit it up as if it were a person that could watch him. 

Adjusting the weights on the stick, Randor slid a few of the iron rings off it to make it lighter for the toddler to hold. He passed it to the boy. “How does that feel? Too heavy?”

“Uh-uh.” Malkyn shook his head. “It’s fine.”

“Okay.” Randor nodded. “So, first we’re gonna work on your stance. Stand with your feet slightly spread, your dominant foot slightly in front of the other.”

When the boy just looked up at him confused, not understanding ‘dominant foot’, Randor demonstrated. Assuming his own battle stance and raising his arm as if her were holding his own sword. 

“Like this, see. My dominant hand is my right hand, so my dominant foot is my left foot.” Randor explained. “Your dominant foot is the one you lead with. It will always be the first to move between then two of them, so you want it in front. Or else you’ll trip over your own feet and risk falling on your own sword.”

Frowning in thought, this idea of ‘dominant hand, dominant foot’ was new and sounded so strange and so weird to him. He hefted the weighted stick in his hands and hopped from foot to foot, trying to figure out which one he ‘lead with’. Finally, Malkyn looked back up at his uncle. “I use both.”

“Well, of course you use both!” Randor agreed. “But one you use better.”

“Malkyn is ambidextrous.” Keldor announced. “He writes with his right hand and draws with his left. 

“That’s really cool, nephew!” Randor beamed at the toddler. “Not a lot of people can do that.”

Malkyn just fidgeted on his feet, unused to being praised and not knowing how to react to it. 

“Alright, plant your feet how you feel most comfortable and we’ll go from there.” Randor decided. When the boy did, setting one foot slightly in front of the other, Randor gave him an experimentally light shove to make sure his footing was solid. “Alright, now we’re gonna build up your arm strength. Hold the weighted stick with both hands-“ Randor knelt down to adjust the boy’s hand position and grip “-like that. Now, raised it above your head and bring it down slowly. Stop when your hands are just above your waist and keep the blade up.”

“There isn’t a blade.” Malkyn told his uncle. 

“Not on this one, no.” Randor agreed. “But for training purposes, let’s pretend there is a blade.” He tapped the long weighted part of the stick. “We’re gonna call this the blade. I want to see this part always pointing up. Remember: if your sword is up, then it’s between you and whatever wants to kill you.”

“’Kay.” Malkyn muttered, not agreeing. It was very clearly a rounded stick with some weights on it, not a blade. But whatever, he could play pretend. Malkyn raised the ‘sword’ over his head, then brought it back down again slowly, keeping the ‘blade’ up and stopping just before his hands got to his waist. 

“Do you feel your muscles working?” Randor asked. 

“Yeah.” The boy nodded. 

“Good.” Randor smiled at him. “If you repeat that motion, you’ll build your arm muscles up. We can let them rest a day, and then I’ll add more weight to your sword.”

“Not a sword.” The toddler reminded him. 

“I’m glad I have you to remind me.” Randor took note that toddlers were very literal. He would be training two of his own in a few years’ time. “Keep up that motion for a few repetitions.” Randor told him. “I’m gonna be right over there talking to your dad. Don’t over do it. If you’re arms hurt, I want you to stop and come over to us, okay.”

“Uh-huh.” The boy seemed uninterested; he was already focused on the repetitions of his arm exercise. 

Keldor was seated on the bleachers next to Malkyn’s folded cape and his upright stuffed Dylinx. Randor flopped down on the cape and toy’s other side. As if the plush kitty were also a spectator. 

“How do you do that?” Keldor asked. 

“Do what?” Randor blinked at him, not understanding the question. 

“Just be around him. Talk to him. Have an interaction without making him cry.” 

“I have never seen Malkyn cry.” Randor informed his brother. 

All he ever saw the toddler do was hiccup, press his mouth shut, and hold in his wails until he was purple in the face. The only sound ever escaping him a subdued whine from the back of his throat. But that was part of the problem, wasn’t it. Children were supposed to cry. That was a normal, healthy thing that children were supposed to do. But Keldor hated it when his son cried, so his son never cried. No matter how much he might need to. 

“He’s fearless around Panthor where seasoned warriors shiver and piss themselves, and he never cries.” Keldor nodded, a touch of pride slipping into his voice. “My son is strong.” He even had a smile when he said that. But then the corners of his mouth turned downward in a frown. “Which is why I just cannot understand how he’s still afraid of the dark. Nightmares and Unnamed wizards… real and tangible danger he wants to play with, but imaginary phantasms are what bring him low.”

His own frustration bubbling out as a sigh, Randor shook his head at his older brother. “You really are dumb sometimes, ya know that!”

“You beg my pardon!” Keldor was offended. How dare his baby brother call him dumb. “You’re dumb!”

“Kids are supposed to cry, Keldor.” Randor snapped at him. “Malkyn never crying is not something to be proud of, it’s something to be concerned about! He’s going to be five in a couple of days. Five. He’s a baby! He should cry! But he doesn’t. Because he knows it’ll make your angry. He wants to play with Panthor because Panthor is your familiar. It’s not that he’s fearless or strong. He wants to be like you and he’s desperate to please you.”

Keldor did not like a single word of that. But he didn’t know what to say in reply to it either. So he only glared at his brother. A sharp, angry glare with slanted eyebrows and a deep frown. 

“You’re right when you say Malkyn’s Unnamed wizard is imaginary.” Randor continued. “Malkyn can’t show fear or weakness during the day, so he invented an imaginary villain to be afraid of instead. Don’t you get it, Keldor, you’re Malkyn’s bad wizard!”

Keldor shot to his feet. “How dare you!”

“I’ve been reading a lot about how kids think since Marlena got pregnant.” Randor explained. 

“I have never hurt my son in his life!” Keldor snarled at his brother, still standing. At his sides his hands balled into fists. 

“You’ve never hit him.” Randor agreed. “But how many times have you reprimanded him for almost crying? How many times have you yelled at him for wetting the bed -his own bed, or yours. How many times have you dismissed his concerns as childish and sent him away? Just now, when we were with Marlena, Malkyn tried to take your hand and all you did was look at him and he recoiled from you. Your son is afraid of you Keldor! He’s afraid of you, but he also loves you and wants you to like him. So he invents a wizard to be the bad guy instead.”

Keldor just continued to glare at his brother. “You’re wrong.”

Randor only shrugged. “Maybe I am. I don’t see what you’re like with your son behind closed doors. I only have an outsider’s perspective. But, from my perspective, that’s what it looks like. Maybe I’m wrong.” Randor decided that maybe it was better to give in for now and not continue the argument with his brother. “But Malkyn has woken up afraid almost every night for some time now. So much so that father has ordered the guards to ignore his cries in the night. So, if it’s not an imagined villain, what is he so afraid of?”


	4. Mid-Day Nap Time

“Has anyone seen Princess-Consort Evelyn?” Asked a very frustrated Prince Keldor. 

He was carrying his sleeping son in his arms; the toddler having fallen asleep not long after his first ‘sword training’ lesson. It was a little early for his mid-day nap, and Keldor was sure Lyn was going to be upset with him over ‘throwing his whole schedule off track’. But at the moment, that wasn’t what Keldor cared about. He just wanted to pass the boy off to someone else so that he didn’t have to be responsible for him all day. 

Since the whole palace staff was given the day off (with the exception of the guards), that meant that the only person he could pass Malkyn off to was the child’s mother. 

“I believe she’s in the sorcerers’ workshop, Your Highness.” Duncan supplied. “Princess-Consort Marlena asked her for something to help her sleep.”

With a nod as his only acknowledgment, Keldor turned around and marched to the sorcerers’ workshop. 

Sure enough, Lyn was there. She was leaning over a worktable, putting her weight into grinding herbs in a small mortar. 

Keldor looked around the room for a soft place to lay his son down that wasn’t already enchanted in some way that he did not want his heir exposed to. The sorcerers’ workshop was no place for a child. Even a sleeping one that wasn’t going to be grabbing at things without knowing what they were. 

Finally, Keldor decided he didn’t trust anything in the room and just held onto his son. He cleared his throat to get his wife’s attention. 

“I heard you come in.” Lyn told him. “Did you forget how to tuck him into his own bed?”

“The nanny is not there since father gave everyone the day off.” Keldor replied. “There’s no one to watch him.”

“You can’t stay with him?” She asked. “I thought you had the day off too.”

“I do not intent to spend all my free time watching a sleeping child drool on his pillow.” He growled. 

Setting down the pestle, Lyn tipped the mortar into a bubbling cauldron over a burner at the end of the table. The motion hissed as the new ingredient was added and she stirred it until the hissing subsided into a gentle simmer. Satisfied that the potion wasn’t about to blow up, she turned around to look at her husband. 

“Watching him does not literally mean keeping your eyes on him at all times.” She informed him. “It means being in the room or near enough by in case he needs something. You can read, you can sharpen your swords, you can file your nails, or sketch sigil concepts in your book of shadows. You can still have your own free time while also ‘watching’ your son, Keldor.”

He did not look convinced. 

Heaving a dramatic sigh, Lyn looked around the room. She spotted a worktable that would be easy enough to clear off and started moving bottles and books onto shelves. Then she crossed the room to her husband and too Keldor’s cape off his shoulders. Folding it wide, she laid the cape on the table to make the wood at least a little bit softer. Then Lyn took her son out of his arms and laid him down. Tucking the boy’s own cape around him like a blanket. 

All the handling did not wake him up. The most Malkyn did was groan a little in his sleep and hug his stuffed Dylinx closer to his chest. 

“There.” Lyn said. “Now I can watch him while you do… whatever it is you wanted to do today that was so important you can’t sit in with your son for an hour while he sleeps.”

He sputtered for a moment, insulted. 

Lyn just went back to stirring the potion she was making. 

Keldor looked around the room. He noted that there was a stack of books piled at the opposite end of the table from her burning cauldron. He noted their titles and saw that they were not potion books but beastiaries and monster manuals. Clearly not a project in any way associated with Marlena’s sleeping draft. 

Then he noted the drawing pinned to a specimen board on the wall. Rendered in purple crayon and looking more like a scribble than anything else. But if Lyn had put it up in the sorcerers’ workshop then it probably wasn’t a just another one of Malkyn’s bad drawings. She probably thought it had some kind of significance. Keldor glanced back at the monster and beast research on the table and something in his mind clicked. That crayon scribble was Malkyn’s Unnamed wizard. 

“You’re not taking his stupid nightmares seriously, are you?” He blurted out. “Malkyn’s Unnamed wizard isn’t real.”

No sooner was this statement out of his mouth than Randor’s accusation ran through his head, making Keldor feel a little like he’d been punched in the stomach. Suddenly, he wished Malkyn’s nightmares were real. Real monsters he could fight. Invented terrors spawned by his own inability to show affection to his son were not so easily vanquished. 

“It’s been going on long enough that someone has to.” Lyn informed him. “It’s real enough to Malkyn.”

She stopped stirring the potion she was making and turned off the burner. Letting the mixture rest before she sieved it into a bottle for her sister-in-law. She hopped up on the table and sat. 

Keldor came over and leaned next to her against the table. “Being ‘real’ to the mind of a child and actually being real are not the same thing.”

“True.” Lyn agreed. She tilted her head to glance at the potion, making sure it was resting and cooling as it was supposed to. “But our son is no ordinary child.”

“Ugh.” Keldor heard the groan come out of his mouth somehow sounding like his father’s voice. “Every mother thinks her child is special.”

“My son is special.” She insisted, her voice even and serious. “Malkyn is the descendent two different but equally powerful lines of the Ancients. You are a descendent of King Grayskull, I am a descendent of the Faceless One. Our son is the descendent of both! The combined power of both bloodlines could give him extra-sensory perceptions that we don’t have.”

Pulling away from the table, Keldor straightened, looking at her as if he’d never seen his wife before. He blinked, as if seeing Evelyn for the first time. 

That hadn’t occurred to him. 

“Did you forget?” Lyn asked. “My bloodline was one of the things you married me for. You wanted my power. Did you think my son wasn’t going to inherit that power in addition to your own?”

“I-“ Keldor turned, looking to the other work table and the child that was laid out on it. Still fast asleep, clutching his soft kitty toy. As a future King of Eternia, Keldor always assumed his son was destined for greatness. It never occurred to him that his pedigree could give him powers in his youth before he had the maturity and training to understand them. 

Checking the potion again, Lyn decided it had rested enough. She used a pair of potholders to lift the small cauldron and pour its contents through a sieve and into a clear bottle. The dirty sieve and the cauldron she moved close to the door where the servants would know that it was safe for them to touch and clean for her. 

Then Lyn left the sorcerers’ workshop with the bottle of potion she just brewed. “Just make sure Malkyn doesn’t roll over and fall off the table while I’m gone.”

Keldor was left in the quiet sorcerers’ workshop. 

He turned back to the table Malkyn was sleeping on. It hadn’t occurred to him that his child might have extra sensitivities that he did not have. That the boy’s dual bloodline made him more perceptive to things even fully trained and experienced sorcerers couldn’t detect without effort. Malkyn was the result of two bloodlines of the Ancients converging. To the best of Keldor’s knowledge, that have never happened before. 

All parents liked to think their child was special. But in Keldor’s case, his child actually was special. No other child on Eternia could claim such a pedigree, or the power that went along with it. 

‘Don’t you get it, Keldor, you’re Malkyn’s bad wizard!’ Randor’s words echoed through his head. 

Malkyn’s Unnamed night terror might be imaginary, but that didn’t mean it wasn’t real. Not for someone who might have inherited two-fold the power of the Ancients. 

Crossing the room, Keldor pulled Malkyn’s drawing of his Unnamed night terror down from the specimen board. It didn’t look like any beast, monster, or specter that he’d ever seen. Of course, that could just as easily be because it was a child’s drawing and a few scratches of crayon rarely looked like what they were supposed to look like. The portrait Malkyn did of him sitting as King on the throne did not look a thing like Keldor, to spite what he told his son. 

Holding the drawing in one hand, Keldor searched the bookshelf. Lyn could check all the beastiaries and monster manuals she liked. But if the villain was a creation of Malkyn’s own imagination it wouldn’t be in there. Finding the book he was looking for, Keldor pulled it down off the shelf and started leafing through it until he found the right passage. 

He was still reading when Lyn returned from delivering her potion to Marlena. 

She looked at the volume he was bent over, tilting her head to read the title. “Tulpa?”

“I still maintain Malkyn’s nightmares are imaginary.” He announced. “However, you have just reminded me of our son’s potential for power. Just because it is imaginary doesn’t mean he hasn’t also made it real.”

For half a second, Lyn seemed startled. As if she weren’t expecting him to actually take their son’s night terrors and how they might be an indicator of his potential for power seriously. 

But then, Lyn had to remind herself, she said the magic words that never failed to get Keldor’s attention. ‘Power’, ‘bloodlines’, ‘Ancients’. Those things Keldor took very seriously. They were the basis for their marriage, and they were the factors he weighed when making decisions about his future rule as King. His future rule as King, ruling with the power of the Ancients that he inherited from his own bloodline. 

Lyn walked around to stand next to him. Leaning in, she gave him a chase kiss on the side of his face. “It’s nice to see that you care.”

“I have always cared.” Keldor insisted. He just didn’t know how to show it. He was never taught to show his feelings. And, in fact, was reprimanded for even having them sometimes. King Miro demanded nothing but perfection from the son that would be his heir. 

“Of course.” Lyn nodded. “He’s your heir. You always cared about him in that capacity.”

“No, I-“ Keldor cut himself off, not knowing how to explain to her that he did care. 

He always cared. He cared when she was pregnant, and he cared when Malkyn was born, and he cared now. Keldor just didn’t know how to show them he cared because his own father always taught him that such emotional displays or tenderness were a weakness and not to be tolerated. His father was certainly never affectionate with him, so how could he know to be affectionate with his own son? 

Instead, he changed the subject. “We should get him to a proper bed before that table makes his muscles stiff.”

Lyn stood to the side so that Keldor could reach the table their child was laying on. “By all means. You’re the one who brought him in here.”

Shutting the book he was reading, Keldor lifted his child back into his arms. 

Lyn picked the drawing of Malkyn’s Unnamed wizard and pinned it back to the specimen board where it would not get lost. 

She followed her husband up the stairs to the private apartments of the royal family, and their own suite. Lyn watched Keldor lay the boy down on top of his blankets, and pulled off his slippers for him. Then pull back the covers and tuck the boy in. 

It was a little clumsy. He was not used to juggling a sleeping child. But it was nice to see him trying. Maybe what he told her the other day was true. He was using a ‘softer hand’ with his son. It was nice seeing Keldor try with their child. It made him seem more attractive somehow. Attractive in a different way than his status, his wealth, and his power originally made him attractive to her. These things were always very attractive about him and they hadn’t changed. Keldor would be King, and he would make her his Queen. That was the most attractive thing about him. Also, he had tight abs and a nice ass, and Lyn liked those things too. 

Keldor looked at her as if he had no idea what he was supposed to do now. 

Reaching into a drawer in a dresser by the door, Lyn took out a pair of baby monitors and switched them on. She set one on Malkyn’s bedside table and kept the other. “Now, we can figure out what to do with our day off while he’s asleep.”

“I thought you said read, or sharpen my swords.” He reminded her. 

“I did say that.” She nodded. Gosh, he looked so good right now. Slightly rumpled from sword training with Randor, and a little lost from having to actually act like a parent for five minutes. Rumpled, and lost, and helpless, and just so… vulnerable. That was it. That was why he looked so much more attractive right now. Lyn liked a little vulnerability in her men. “Or, there is something else we could do with this time that we haven’t done in a while.”

Taking him by the hand, Lyn pulled Keldor out of the child’s room, and across the corridor. 

“I thought you said we had to watch him.” He protested, more out of confusion than disagreement. To spite being a parent for almost five years now, Keldor still wasn’t very clear on the rules of what ‘watching’ entailed. 

“That’s what this is for.” Lyn waved the baby monitor in her other hand. With its counterpart resting at Malkyn’s bedside, they would be able to hear if their son woke up without having to actually be in the room with him. 

She pulled Keldor into their own bedroom. 

“If its sex you’re saying we haven’t done in a while, we had angry-sex just yesterday after lunch.” Keldor reminded her. 

It was one of their favorite ways to end an argument. Not as tender and loving as make-up sex, angry-sex was about gratification and acted as a nice notary stamp to mark to conclusion of a disagreement between the two of them. 

“As fun as it is being pressed up against a wall while we try to move our clothing out of the way without taking any of it off, that’s not what I had in mind.” Lyn bent down and pulled a chest out from under the bed. 

Keldor recognized it instantly and his cheeks colored a politely scandalized shade of purple -his version of a blush on his blue skin. Malkyn had his toys, and they had theirs. “Oh. We haven’t done that in a while.”

Opening the chest, Lyn pulled out fur-lined shackles, silk rope that did not chafe skin, a gag, candles with a special wax that melted at a lower temperature and dripped easily, riding crops, a strap, and a variety of lubricants that offered different sensations. 

“That is…” Lyn coiled a silk rope between her hands and pulled it tight, the fibers making an audible straining sound, “…assuming you still enjoy these kinds of activities.”

Keldor had never taken his clothes off so fast. “My Queen…”

…

They both flopped down on the bed, sated and satisfied. It really had been too long since they had the time to indulge in any of what they just did. 

“We need a shower.” Keldor muttered, smiling up at the bed canopy like a fool. He made no move to get out of bed and instead rubbed at a slight rope-burn on the inside of his thigh. The ropes were designed to reduce chaffing, but Lyn tied them extra-tight (which he preferred) and they did sometimes leave behind irritated and sensitive skin afterwards. 

“Can you even stand up?” Lyn teased him. “After the pounding I just gave you.”

He muttered something in reply, but Lyn didn’t catch it. Keldor rolled over and wrapped his arms around her. Post orgasm euphoria, after indulging in kinks that he didn’t usually get to indulge in, was about the only time Keldor felt safe enough to be vulnerable and actually show affection. The affection came more easily to him afterwards. Like his social restraints and inhibitions came unbound with the silk ropes. 

She saw him at his most deviant and did not judge him. Even better than not judge him, she joined in and was an active participant. Evelyn made him feel normal, and accepted, and safe. 

“What did I do to get a wife willing to do everything you just did to me?” He muttered into her breast. 

“You promised me I could rule the world.” She reminded him, running a hand through his hair. He had such lovely hair. Long and straight, a black so dark it was almost ebony, and -currently- a tangled mess from their activities. 

Of course, his hair was not the only mess they made. They did need to shower. 

“Mm, that was it…” Keldor sighed with contentment. 

“Are you falling asleep? I thought you wanted to shower.” Lyn teased him. 

“Uh-huh.” He nodded against her breasts, then cuddled closer, pillowing his head on her soft chest. “I’m getting up.”

Lyn huffed. “Do you want me to drag you to the shower?”

“Mmm…” 

That wouldn’t do. She needed a reply in words. “Pretzels?”

“Pretzels.” He confirmed. 

Climbing out of bed, Lyn grabbed Keldor by a fistful of his already tangled hair and yanked -hard! Forcing him to slide out of bed and stand up. 

Keldor hissed in pain, then whispered through his teeth, “Harder.”

She readjusted her grip on his hair, pulling harder as he requested, then dragged him to the bathroom and shoved him in the shower. She turned the water on and shut the bathroom door behind them. 

With the water running loud, and the door closed, neither of them could head the baby monitor which was left next to their bed. 

The monitor flared to life, crackling with static. Sounds in Malkyn’s room that the device couldn’t quite pick up. A snapping, popping, crackle almost like the electric charge of friction. Of one energy crashing against another, or like a tear forming in fabric. Except the ‘fabric’ that was tearing was the mystical fabric that separated dimensions. 

Then a very clear and audible whimper, of a scared child just waking up to find inexplicable magical things occurring in his room. 

The crackling continued, but just under the static, so low the baby monitor almost didn’t pick it up, was a voice. “…ree me… You-“ 

And Malkyn’s frightened response. “Go away!”

“You will free me…” Insisted the voice. 

“Go away!” Malkyn shouted again, sounding as if he might cry. “I don’t wanna see you anymore!”

“Free me!” The voice repeated. “With the blood of your Ancients.”

The crackle and pop of static rose in volume. Whatever magical power or impassible barrier was colliding with whatever other magical power or impassible barrier pushing back. Repelling the encroaching force. 

“You will-“ The voice was cut off as it was pushed back by whatever magical confrontation was going on in the room. 

There was the sound of Malkyn sobbing. Just Malkyn. No crackle of static, no other voice in the room. Just a crying child, and the scrape of a blanket over skin as he wiped tears out of his eyes. Tears that he could never let his father see. 

There were the gasping breaths of one trying to calm themselves back down. 

Then the creak of a bed as a body climbed out of it. 

The baby monitor was silent again by the time Lyn and Keldor came out of the shower. Wearing towels wrapped around them. Keldor with a second towel wrapped around his hair. 

Without knocking, the door to their bedroom opened and Malkyn walked in, clutching his stuffed Dylinx toy. “Pa’pa…”

Lyn grabbed an end of the sheet of their own bed and flipped it over, hiding the toys and tools she and Keldor were just using. “Your nightmare again?”

“Unbelievable.” Keldor groaned as his son wrapped both arms around his leg and clung tightly, as if expecting to be dragged away at any moment. Whatever pleasant mood Keldor had after his bedroom adventures with Lyn, the contentment evaporated quickly at being bothered by his child’s reoccurring terrors. “Malkyn, it’s the middle of the day. You cannot be afraid of the dark when the sun’s out!”

“The bad wizard was in my room again.” He hiccupped, still clinging to Keldor’s wet leg. 

“There is no bad wizard!” Keldor snapped at him. “It’s just a figment of your imagination. It’s not real!”

“Keldor indulge him.” Lyn commanded. She knew there was something to Malkyn’s terrors that only seemed to happen when he was alone. She felt a shudder of power shift in the air when she slept in his room with him. But whatever that power shift was, it was chased away when every other person in the palace was woken up. Whatever it was, and whatever it wanted, it needed Malkyn to be alone for it. The boy’s father going in to inspect the room was literally the absolute least Keldor could do to ensure that his son remained safe. 

Groaning, he relented. Pulled his towel tighter around his waist and followed his Malkyn across the hall to the boy’s bedroom. 

The bedroom looked fine. Nothing out of place but the tangled blankets on the bed. 

Keldor tried to suppress the urge to groan again. He opened the boy’s wardrobe. There were only clean clothes hanging and polished shoes lined up on its bottom. Nothing strange or out of place there. Certainly, no monsters hiding in the wardrobe. He moved the boy’s door, glaring at the triangle of shadow behind the door, nothing there either. Holding his towel, Keldor bent down and lifted the bed skirt to check under the bed. That too was empty. 

No monsters were found lurking in the boy’s room. 

Crossing the space, Keldor walked to the window and pulled the curtain open, flooding the room with sunlight and chasing away any lingering terrors of the dark. 

“There is nothing here, Malkyn.” He informed his son. 

“He was here, pa’pa.” The boy insisted. “But he left. He always leaves. He can’t- he can’t come all the way in. He says he needs me to bring him in.”

If that were the case, perhaps it was not a fully formed manifestation of the boy’s power. Not a true tulpa, just a ‘concept sketch’. 

“Well, if he can’t come in then you have nothing to worry about.” Keldor informed him. If it was an unformed tulpa, then the quickest way to get rid of it was to get Malkyn to stop imagining it. “If he can’t come in, then he can’t get to you. Don’t bring him in and he’ll eventually give up and go away.” 

“But, pa’pa-“

“I’m tired of hearing about this Unnamed wizard, Malkyn!” Keldor snapped. As if ordering a child to stop having nightmares instantly cured them of their nightmares. “You are about to be five. You’re not a baby anymore. You are a Prince, and it’s time you started acting like one! Don’t bother me with this stupid nightmare of yours again!”

Keldor left the room.


	5. His 5th Birthday Eve

Keldor told Malkyn not to bother him with his night terror ever again, so he didn’t. 

No child came into their room in the night, complaining about nightmares or crying behind their stuffed animal. 

Keldor thought this was a great improvement and took it as a sign that his son was finally growing up and maturing past bad dreams sending him crawling into his parents’ bed. He put his book on tulpa back on the shelf in the sorcerers’ workshop and didn’t worry about Malkyn’s night terrors anymore. They were no longer a bother to him. 

Lyn only grew more concerned. She knew something more was going on. She had sensed a crackle of magic in the air the one night she slept in Malkyn’s room with him. Something mystical in origin was definitely going on. She just couldn’t figure out what, and the fact that her son was no longer coming to them for help or comfort was a bad sign. 

But the Prince’s fifth birthday was fast approaching and as his parents, they had other things to worry about during the day than simple nightmares. 

As Princess-Consort and the Prince’s mother, most of those preparations fell to Evelyn. Guest lists and schedules, food, music, and party games, decorations, and clothing. 

Malkyn was five now. No longer a toddler, he finally graduated up to ‘little kid’. As such, it was time to retire his toddler clothes. No more knee length tunics, short capes, or slippers. It was time for him to start wearing big boy loincloths, longer capes that went down past his bottom, and exchange his slippers for boots. 

Malkyn was fussy and complained throughout the whole ordeal. Squirming so that it was difficult for the tailors and the cobblers to take his measurements. Any time he was told to stop and stand quietly while they worked, he replied with a high pitched and whiny, “But I don’t wanna!”

One time when Keldor was in the room to witness one of these juvenile bursts of temper, he sneered. “Why even bother. He’s just gonna piss his loincloth. At least the tunics drape and hide his accidents better.”

Lyn kicked him out of the room after that and he was no longer allowed to offer input on his son’s wardrobe. 

The party was held outside in the gardens, and canopies and pavilions were erected to shield guests from the sun. A large buffet table was set up in one pavilion so that guests could eat at their leisure, with food that appealed to both children and adult pallets. A juice bar for children and adults who didn’t drink alcohol, and a regular bar for adults that did drink alcohol. 

A second pavilion held all of the presents for the Prince, and a third for the dance floor. 

At a focal point between the three canopies was a chair, a sort of mock-throne, where Prince Malkyn sat. Looking board and uncomfortable in the afternoon sun. He had to sit up straight and smile and look excited with every gift that was presented to him. His little stuffed Dylinx sitting on one of the armrests, as if it were receiving presents with him. 

One visiting dignitary gave him bolts of wool velvet fabric, another offered fine leathers boiled to a satiny shine. Books that were too advanced for a five-year-old to read. An artist rendering of his grandfather, King Miro, defeating Count Marzo in the final battle of the Great Unrest. Most of the gifts were things that no child would have an interest in. 

Miro’s gift to his grandson was a blunted metal practice sword sized for a child’s hands. “Randor informed me that he gave Malkyn his first sword lesson recently.” He muttered to Keldor as they watched the boy heft the metal ‘blade’ in his hands. (It was just a hair too heavy for him). “Which is something you should have done, Keldor.”

Lyn gave him a set of articulated figures of every large cat on Eternia. He took the Dylinx out of the set and stood it up on the other armrest so that he was flanked by a toy Dylinx on either side. 

“Ugh. More toys.” Keldor muttered to no one but himself. 

Lyn heard him anyway and elbowed him in the side. Children needed toys, and their son liked big cats. 

Randor gave him a box of colored pencils. “I thought your art was good enough that you should graduate up to pencils.”

Malkyn looked very excited about the colored pencils and asked if he could have some paper and start drawing right away. But his parents informed him that he had to wait until everyone had presented him with their gifts. 

There were a lot. Every nobleman and head of a wealthy family on the planet was invited. Malkyn had to sit patiently with his back strait and listen to them all praise his grandfather, and assure him that he was destined for great things. 

Finally, the presents portion of the party was over and Malkyn was allowed to get down off his child-sized throne and do what he wanted to do. 

Since there were no other children in attendance, that meant going off to a corner alone where he could play with his new cat action figures and color with his new colored pencils. 

“Why aren’t there any other children here?” Marlena asked, looking around the gathered guests in confusion. She was holding baby Adora in her arms, the collar of her dress pulled to the side so one breast could be slipped out to nurse her daughter. “Didn’t you all just finish a big war six years ago? Shouldn’t everyone have gone home and started making babies?”

Keldor turned to answer her question, saw that her breast was out and turned away again. Lifting one hand to the side of his face to offer his sister-in-law some added privacy. He was speaking to the empty air when he answered. “No, everyone went home and fucked. People only have babies when they need to. Don’t they have birth control on Earth?”

“Yeah…” Marlena admitted. “But most people don’t use it. Especially the people that really, really should.”

“How horrifying.” Keldor could not even imagine a world where people had access to contraceptives and chose not to use them. Earth could achieve space travel, but their people still risked getting pregnant any time they had sex! Did people just keep having children until they died? How did a single mating pair even care for and raised more than one or two children at a time? Keldor was having a hard enough time with just Malkyn, and he had an army of servants to help him. Earth must be a hellscape of juvenile chaos. “No wonder you left.”

Marlena wanted to assure him that Earth wasn’t as bad as he was imagining. That it had its good points. But then she remembered that around the time she left, the entire contentment of Australia was on fire, the threat of a third World War was looming, and there was a nasty virus crawling across the planet turning a contagious outbreak into a global pandemic. If she were an alien, she wouldn’t find anything good about Earth either. 

Instead, she decided to just drop the conversation entirely. She was tired from having two new babies to take care of and -honestly- didn’t have the patience to deal with her brother-in-law. 

“Excuse me.” She said, “I think Ran needs my help with Adam.”

She walked away. 

Keldor watched her leave, then scanned the crowd for his brother. 

Randor was sitting next to Malkyn’s little table. Holding Adam against his chest, using one arm to support the baby’s head, while his other hand was pointing out something on Malkyn’s drawing. Offering some advice or critique on how to improve his picture. Randor looked fine. He didn’t need Marlena’s help at all. With baby Adam, or with Malkyn. Keldor didn’t understand how his brother did that. Engage with and entertain one child, while also taking care of a second -smaller- child. 

Keldor couldn’t even engage with his own child. 

At least Malkyn looked to be entertained and satisfied with the attention he was getting so that he wouldn’t come bothering Keldor for attention. He selected one of his new colored pencils and put it in the jaw of his new Dylinc figure, turning the articulated head so that it looked like the toy cat was drawing with the pencil. He as having a good time. 

Malkyn might not have come up and bothered Keldor, but someone else did. 

A prosthetic arm came from behind him and coiled itself around his shoulders, pulling Keldor in close to the body it was attached to. “Hey there, Hafu.”

Keldor couldn’t turn his head since he was being squeezed so tightly, but he knew who it was. Only one man on the whole planet would dare call him ‘hafu’. “Kronis, you big oaf! Let go of me!”

He did. Letting go of the Prince almost immediately. 

Keldor took a step back and glared at the other man. Kronis was another Gar, the only other Gar besides himself and his son than Keldor even knew. They met during the Great Unrest. 

At the time, Kronis was a smuggler, a criminal, running between both sides. When he was captured by Keldor’s forces, Kronis tried to bargain for his life by appealing to Keldor as a fellow member of their rare and declining race, solidarity and fraternity between Gar. When that failed, Kronis offered to lace some supplies and foodstuffs with poison and smuggle them into Marzo’s camp. What enemy troops weren’t killed by the tainted food were quickly slaughtered by Keldor’s forces the following morning. It was a bloodbath, but Keldor’s side didn’t suffer a single loss. 

They had been friends ever since. 

“I see you finally got here.” Keldor observed dryly. “Late as usual.”

“Late?” Kronis placed his prosthetic hand over his heart. “You wound me. I’ve been here since the bar was opened.”

He lifted his good hand, which held a half-drunk tankard of beer and lifted it to his lips, drinking deep and exaggerating with loud gulping sounds. 

“Ugh.” Keldor scoffed, once again sounding like his father even to his own ears. 

“You should try drinking more.” Kronis suggested. “Might loosen up that stick you’ve got up your ass.”

“I’ll have a glass of wine at dinner.” Keldor informed him. 

“Ooh, one glass of wine! Back-up! We got us a baddass over here!” He drained his tankard of beer and waved to a servant who came over to collect the empty glass. “One more for me, and bring one for the Prince too.”

With a nod, the servant left to fill the order. 

“I will not be drinking that foul tasting swill you favor.” Keldor assured him. They might have become something analogues to ‘friends’ during the war, but Kronis was still a low-born commoner, and he continued to act like, dress like, and drink like a low-born commoner. “Did you even bring my son a gift?”

Reaching into a pouch he carried on his belt, Kronis pulled out a drawstring bag. He passed it to Keldor for his inspection. 

Opening the drawstring, Keldor pulled out what looked like a wooden handle with two cups that sort of formed the silhouette of a hammer, and a spike at the end. There was also a string attached and Keldor pulled this out to find that the other end held a ball, made of the same wood as the handle. “What is this?”

“Kendama.” Kronis supplied. “Traditional Gar toy for children. I made it myself. I used to have one just like it when I was Malkyn’s age.”

“Prince Malkyn.” Keldor reminded him. Kronis might be friends with Keldor thanks to their unlikely alliance during the war, but that did not change the fact that Kronis was a former criminal (pardoned by the King for his help during the Great Unrest) and Keldor was royalty, which made Keldor’s son royalty. Kronis needed to remember his place and that people in his place were required to use the correct honorifics. 

Kronis only rolled his eyes. Yup. Keldor really had a stick up his ass. “When I was the Prince’s age.”

“I’ll ask Princess-Consort Evelyn if he can have it.” Keldor promised his friend as he replaced the toy in its drawstring bag. “I’m not sure about the spike on the end. He could poke his eye out.”

For half second Kronis started at his friend. He forgot sometimes that Keldor was a parent. He didn’t act like a parent the vast majority of the time that it was a little jarring when he voiced concerns that were normal for a parent to worry about. Like little kids being given pointy toys. 

Kronis shrugged. “The King gave your son a whole-ass sword.”

At that reminder, Keldor growled something almost inaudible under his breath. He still maintained that Malkyn was too young to start sword training. Swords were sharp, pointy, and dangerous, and Malkyn was… gentle. He liked cats, and drawing, and sweet biscuits. Keldor could not imagine his son sweating in the training ring -or worse!- bleeding on a battle field. 

Some of the things he saw -some of the thing he did- during the Great Unrest still gave Keldor nightmares of his own sometimes. Malkyn had enough trouble sleeping with his own child-nightmares. They boy did not need visions of battlefield horrors on top of them. 

But Keldor wasn’t going to tell Kronis any of that. As he kept telling his son, a Prince must be strong. A Prince did not admit his weaknesses out loud. A Prince did not share his worries. 

“Excuse me, I see my wife is calling me.” Keldor walked away from the conversation instead. 

After the Prince left, the servant returned with the two tankards of beer. 

Kronis shrugged. He could drink two more. 

The party was a long one. It had started in the afternoon, when the sun was bright, and the day was warm. But the festivities dragged on into the evening when the servants had to bring out lamps for light, and even later when the night got cold enough to need decretive radiators for warmth. 

Malkyn had to be carried upstairs and put in bed while the rest of the adults continued to enjoy the party. 

The occasion for the party might be to mark Prince Malkyn’s birthday, but the party itself was mostly for the adults anyway. Lyn had Malkyn’s nanny take him upstairs to his room to tuck him into bed. 

After the child was taken away, Keldor slithered up next to his wife holding two glasses of wine. He passed one to her. “I’m surprised you didn’t go upstairs to tuck him in yourself.” 

Lyn took the glass of wine appreciatively. “I need a break from being a mother sometimes too, ya know.” She informed him, and took a large sip of the wine. “I spent so much time planning and putting together this stupid party, then having your father overrule all my designs and throw his own party…” she trailed off with a groan. “This was supposed to be for Malkyn, but after the presents, nothing about this event has been about him.”

Keldor didn’t really understand her frustration. This was what all his own birthday parties were like back when he was growing up. You get all your presents at the beginning, then there’s cake, then all the adults get to have their fun while you stay out of the way. Was that not how they did birthday parties in Zalesia? He didn’t ask, Keldor wasn’t in the mood to hear another sob-story about Lyn growing up alone in a ruined city with only a gloomy, Faceless, immortal for company. 

Instead, he took a sip of his own wine. He tapped his fingers on the glass, thinking he should say something. 

Keldor watched Raqquill and Kronis on the dance floor, twirling and spinning, switching partners with the steps of the dance. Everyone looked to be having fun. He looked to his side, at Evelyn, the artificial lights catching in her white hair, giving it an almost silver shine, her violet eyes as she likewise watched the others spin. The corner of her lips upturned in a smirk at some private thought she found amusing. 

If Keldor were the kind of person capable of falling in love, he could easily see himself loving his wife. 

Feeling his eyes on her, Lyn glanced to the side. “What?” She asked. “What’s that look for?”

Keldor blinked. He didn’t realize he was looking at her in any particular way. He cleared his throat. “Princess-Consort Evelyn, I do believe at least one dance is expected of us.”

The corners of her mouth turned upwards in that same smirk again. The expression of her finding something funny, but it was a private joke that she wasn’t going to share. Lyn drained her wineglass and set it on a passing servant’s tray. She offered Keldor her hand. “Then by all means, Crown Prince Keldor, escort me to the dance floor.”

They waited until a new song began so they could count their steps from one. 

Keldor must have danced three dances with his wife, a number that -if they hadn’t already been married for years- would have been a scandalous number. Tomorrow all the nobles and wealthy guests would go home and tell their relatives about how apparently in love and still very passionate the Crown Prince was for his Princess-Consort. 

They laughed about it together later as they were making their way upstairs to retire for the night. 

“We’re like one of those ‘fake courting’ stories.” Lyn giggled, then hiccupped. It was entirely possible that she had too much wine to drink. 

“A ‘fake courting’ story, except we’ve been married six years.” Keldor agreed, chuckling himself, his cheeks a rosy purple. It was entirely possible that he had too much wine too. But it really was hilarious how everyone -even Keldor’s own brother- was fooled into believing that he was in love with his wife. 

She leaned against his arm. “And those fools eat it all up.”

Moving without making the conscious decision to, Keldor shifted the arm Lyn was leaning against and wrapped it around her waist, pulling her body flush against his. Somehow, they ended up with Lyn pressed against the corridor wall, with Keldor leaning into her. “I’d like to eat you up.”

Lyn tilted her head, looking up at him coyly through her lashes. She flashed a crooked smirk. “Don’t you mean ‘eat me out’?”

They were just outside their suite of apartments in the residential wing of the palace. In the middle of the corridor was not an appropriate place to be eating anyone up or out. 

Keldor didn’t care. He leaned in and kissed his wife on the lips. His head tilted one way, lips slightly parted, tongue slithering out. But at the moment she began to return the kiss, Keldor pulled away, making her groan with disappointment. She hated it when he teased her. Keldor shifted his attentions to her throat. Trailing kisses down her neck to the hollow where her collar bones met. Then lower still, the swell of her breasts. He sank to his knees as he traveled lower, his hands caressing the fabric of her formal leotard. His kisses resumed when he reached the exposed skin of her thighs. 

Lyn giggled. “Keldor, someone might see us!”

“Does that discourage your arousal or heighten it, my Princess?” He muttered into the juncture between her thighs. 

She would be lying if she tried to deny that the possibility of being seen by a servant -or worse another member of the royal family!- made what Keldor was doing down there more exciting. But she also wasn’t going to give him the satisfaction of confirming that he knew her so well. Keldor’s ego was big enough as it was, thank you very much. 

Instead of saying anything, Lyn leaned back against the wall, letting it and Keldor support most of her weight, while she enjoyed his attentions. Even just petting over the fabric of her leotard, Keldor was very good at what he did. As a reward, Lyn grabbed fist-fulls of his hair, her nails scraping the skin of his scalp, and she pulled -hard- just the way he liked it. 

They might not be in love, but each did know what the other liked and how to please them. 

Lyn was distracted from their passionate moment by sensing a change in the air. 

A crackled of power. Static in the natural currents of aether that composed the magical fabric of Eternia. Lyn opened her eyes and looked around them. Nothing seemed amiss in the corridor. But then, it was never in the corridor that the strange phenomenon occurred in. Glaring over her husband’s bent form, Lyn’s attention focused on her son’s room. 

She tried to move, pushing off the wall and taking a step. 

But Keldor was still holding her legs. 

“Stop it for a sec.” She ordered. 

“Afraid someone will see us?” He taunted again, still playing the character of a rake. 

“Pretzels.” Lyn deadpanned. 

Keldor stopped immediately. He wiped his mouth and stood. “I do something wrong?”

“No.” Lyn assured him. He was fine. He was very good at what he did. But her attention was now focused on something much more important. “Don’t you sense that?”

He looked confused for a moment. Then remembered that her magical sensitivity was better than his own. It was one of the things that made her such a powerful sorceress and one of the reasons he married her in the first place. She was probably sensing something he was too distracted to pick up. 

Taking a deep breath (and readjusting his loincloth) Keldor forced his mind to shift into a similar state as when he was performing a ritual, or when he was on the battlefield. Narrowing and sharpening of his senses to only focus on what was important. What was amiss. 

He noticed it at first as the hair on the back of his neck standing on end, and a tingling on his skin like a static charge. Only it wasn’t electrical static from the cables in the walls, it was magical static from the air itself. The aether of Eternia’s natural magic was disturbed somehow. Currents of power rippling out as if abraded by another energy colliding with it, trying to form a tare. 

“What is that?” Keldor didn’t know how to identify what he was sensing. 

But Lyn wasn’t listening to him. Her attention was focused on getting to her child’s room. 

For some reason, the hallways seemed unusually long. It seemed to take longer for Lyn to get to the door than it should have. When she did get there, the handle turned, but the door did not open. 

Lyn tried again, pushing harder. The handled turned, but the door remained closed. 

“Malkyn?” She called through the wood. “Are you awake? Did you lock the door?”

Except the door was clearly not locked because the handle turned. 

Keldor came up beside her. He tried the handle too, noted that it turned, but the door did not open. He pressed his weight against the door- -and was pushed back. Repelled by some invisible force. Frustrated and now concerned, Keldor grabbed the door handle with one hand, the door hinges with the other, and ripped the door out of the frame. 

They were met with only a glowing barrier keeping them out of their son’s room. 

Keldor looked at his wife. Suddenly remembering what their son told him. That whatever his mysterious Unnamed wizard was, it was something trying to manifest itself in their world but couldn’t. …Not unless Malkyn brought it in. Now Keldor was very disappointed in himself for dismissing Malkyn’s concerns over the Unnamed wizard trying to invade his room. Clearly, there was some kind of wizardry going on here after all, and it was clearly much more serious than a mere child’s nightmare. 

Snarling with an almost feral kind of maternal aggression, her hands balling into fists, Lyn gathered her power and shot raw magical energy at the barrier. 

All the barrier did was absorb her spell, adding her magical power to itself and bolstering its strength. 

“The window.” Keldor blurted out. Malkyn’s room had a window and Panthor could reach it. Panthor was a great climber! 

Keldor left Lyn standing there outside the ripped open door, and went sprinting downstairs to the kennels to let out his giant battle panther. 

Ran bumped into Randor on his way downstairs, one of the rare times his brother was seen without one of his children in his arms. 

“You’re in my way!” Keldor barked at him. 

“Whoa!” Randor had to put a hand to the wall to keep them both from clattering to the floor in a heap, Keldor was running so fast when they collided. “Where’s the fire?”

“Move!” Was Keldor’s only response as he pushed himself off his brother and kept running. 

Raqquill was asleep at the Kennel Master’s work space, but Keldor barely even registered him. He passed right by the Beastmen and didn’t even pause when his sudden entrance starteled him awake. 

In his kennel, Panthor lifted his head when the two brothers walked in. It wasn’t time for any of his regularly scheduled feedings, and the two-leggeres usually only took him out during the day. Then he caught Keldor’s scent. A nervous perspiration with a tense urgency to it. His master needed something, and he needed something fast. And there was a kind of grim undertone to it too, something that reminded Panthor of when they would ride into battle during the Great Unrest. Keldor needed Panthor to carry him to an enemy. 

The Dylinx was already standing by the time Keldor opened his kennel. 

Panthor was barely out of the cage when Keldor was already climbing onto his back, not even bothering with the saddle. He needed to move fast. 

But Randor was now standing in the doorway, blocking the kennel exit. 

“I have to get to my son!” Keldor snarled at him, then urged Panthor forward with his keels. 

The massive cat vaulted over Randor, jumping over his head and out of the kennels (and Keldor only just barely managed to avoid bashing his own head on the top of the door frame). 

“What’s going on?” He heard Raqquill ask Randor, but Keldor didn’t hear his brother’s reply. 

Panthor was already carrying him away from the kennels, looking for his master’s new enemy. 

“Up.” Keldor told the cat, pulling a little on the scruff of the Dylinx’s neck since he hadn’t taken the time for reigns. “To my son’s room.” Leaning forward so that his eye-line aligned with the cat’s Keldor pointed. “That one.”

Panthor was a seasoned soldier and did not have to be told twice. Crossing the training yard, the Dylinx got a running start, then jumped, using the jump and his own claws to climb a wall. He plateaued on a rampart, then used another running start to jump and scale a tower. Then from the tower, jump to another rampart, then a ledge. 

It was all ledges from then on up. Claws on stone making uncomfortable scraping sounds. 

Panthor managed to get him to ledge of Malkyn’s windowsill. 

Keldor kicked at the glass, expecting it to shatter under the force of his boot and allow him into the room. But it didn’t his kick only bounced off the glass and Keldor was almost thrown from castle wall. If Panthor hadn’t swatted at him with a paw, catching his large claws in Keldor’s cape, he would have fallen. 

Climbing back onto the sill, Keldor glared at the window. The same glowing barrier from the door inside shone back at him. 

Eyes narrowing, Keldor tried to peer beyond its glow to see what was going on in his son’s room. 

It was dark. Much darker than it should have been. Didn’t Malkyn sleep with a nightlight? Where was his nightlight? Where had all the light in the room gone. The only light Keldor could see was what was coming in from the open door that Lyn was still trying to break the barrier of. As for what was in the room itself… Keldor did not see Malkyn. 

He did see something move though. 

It wasn’t clear. It looked like just another shadow. No different than any other shadow in the room, except this one was moving. Floating above the floor like a ghost. No legs, no tail to slither on like one of the Snakemen, nothing supporting it. With long sleeves and a pointed hat. The same silhouette as Malkyn’s Unnamed wizard. It was real. 

The Unnamed One was real. 

Keldor could have kicked himself. But he kicked at the window instead. The barrier bounced him back again, but this time he was prepared for the kickback. Keldor grabbed onto the overhand above the window and used it to swing. Whatever was happening in that’s room, Keldor had to get in there. 

Inside the palace, Lyn maintained her own onslaught on the magical barrier keeping her from her son. But neither her magical attacks, not Keldor’s physical attacks seemed to even do anything at all. 

Then, as suddenly as it had started, the static charge vanished from the air. The aether of Eternia’s natural magic settled, falling back into its usual rhythm. For one quiet heartbeat of a moment, everything seemed right with the world again. The barriers vanished from the window and door. 

Keldor smashed through the glass just as Lyn burst in through the door. 

They met each other in the center of the room and Lyn waved the lights on. 

Malkyn wasn’t there. 

Panthor hopped in through the window and started sniffing around the room. The whole room smelled of master’s cub. But the bub wasn’t there, and there was a strange lingering scent in the air that the Dylinx was not familiar with. A kind of miasma left behind from sorcery, but it wasn’t like master’s sorcery, or master’s mate’s, or even their vanquished enemy Count Marzo’s sorcery. It was unlike any miasma Panthor had ever smelt. Probably different than any miasma anywhere on Eternia. It was different, apart, alien. 

The cat snorted loudly, not liking the sensation in his nose. Master and master’s mate seemed unaffected. They probably couldn’t even smell it at all. Gar and humans, and most two-leggeres were nose-blind like that. 

“Malkyn?” Lyn called for her son, as if the boy were just playing a hiding game with them and it was time to come out. 

But the room remained silent. No child appeared at her summons. 

Keldor ripped the sheets off the bed, as if he expected to find the boy there. But there was no child sleeping in the bed. He checked the wardrobe, and the space behind the door, and under the bed, and any and every place that a small child could hide in the room. Malkyn wasn’t hiding in any of them. 

Randor appeared in the doorway, half the palace guard behind him. “Keldor, what’s going on?” He asked. “What’s this about Malkyn?”

Ignoring his brother, Keldor turned his attention to the palace guard. “Find my son!” He shouted. “Search every hole and nook in this palace! Search every dive and back-alley in this city! Search every corner of the planet if you have to! Just find my son!” 

As the guard scattered to fulfill the Prince’s command, Lyn sank down to sit on her son’s empty bed. She checked around the pillows, looking for the soft plush Dylinx that Malkyn liked to sleep with. She needed to hug something that would have her child’s energy. Malkyn took that stuffed toy everywhere he went, it would be permeated with his magical ‘scent’. 

But the soft toy wasn’t around the head of the bed. She looked at the pile of blankets Keldor had ripped off the bed. It wasn’t there either. Lyn stood, checking under the bed just to be sure, and picking up the pile of blankets and shaking them out just in case. No plushie Dylinx toy came tumbling out. Malkyn’s favorite stuffed animal was not in the room. 

That meant that whoever, or whatever had taken him took the toy too in order to keep him calm. Or worse-! Malkyn took the toy with him and went with his mysterious Unnamed One willingly…


	6. And Fallout After

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Special thanks to Forestfairyunicorn and LadyJester from Discord for helping me with this chapter.

“Keldor… Keldor… Keldor!”

Keldor awoke with a start from someone shaking him awake. He lifted his head from the book he’d fallen asleep on, the paper with Malkyn’s drawing of his Unnamed wizard sticking to his cheek. He yawned and squinted at the person who had woken him, trying to identify them in the dim light of the sorcerers’ workshop. 

It was not the first time Keldor had fallen asleep in the sorcerers’ workshop since his son disappeared. 

“Randor.” He finally identified his bother. Keldor reached a hand up rub his eyes, then massaged his forehead, the sides of his face, his cheeks. The stubbled on is chin scratching at his palms. He hadn’t shaved in days and his goatee was becoming a full beard. But Keldor didn’t care. There was only one thing he cared about at the moment. “Did they find him?”

The expression on Randor’s face was all the negative he needed. No. They hadn’t found Prince Malkyn, or any sign of him. He was still lost, and without a trace. 

Instead of answering his brother directly, he announced, “Father wants to talk to you.”

Probably to deliver another lecture on how much manpower and resources he was expending on a search that was turning up nothing. Miro had already pointed out more than once that if the child was not found within the first twenty-four hours of his disappearance, then they were not likely to find him alive. A statistical fact that Keldor did not want to hear. 

But his father had summoned him, and it wasn’t like he could disobey the King. 

Using the table to push himself to his feet, Keldor brushed past his brother and out of the sorcerers’ workshop. … and then went in the complete opposite direction his brother was trying to lead him. 

“The throne room is this way.” Randor reminded him. 

“I wanna see my wife.” Keldor growled, not even bothering to turn his head. He didn’t care if his brother heard him or not. 

Keldor had been spending many nights sleeping in the sorcerers’ workshop searching for an answer as to what might have taken his son, or where they could have gone. But it was also rumored that he was sleeping in the sorcerers’ workshop because Princess-Consort Evelyn wouldn’t let him back into their bed. 

The door to Malkyn’s room was still ripped off its hinges. But the servants had cleared it out of the corridor. Keldor was about to step inside when he noticed Lyn was in the middle of… something to do with a very complicated magic circle. The sort of magic working that one did not want to blunder in on. Keldor threw an arm up to block Randor from blundering in as well. 

He felt her power crackle in the air, he was becoming more vigilant to the energies around him now. Always keeping his senses attuned to the aether of Eternia’s magic in case… just in case. Lyn’s power made the hairs on the back of his neck stand up. Whatever she was doing must have taken a lot of power, because the ripples it sent out in the aether were strong enough to cause physical affects, rustling the fabric of their capes and making Randor look to see if someone had left a widow open. (The window Keldor broke on the night of the abduction was boarded up.)

Whatever she was trying to do, she did not succeed. When Lyn finally released the energy, she was channeling, and the aether settled back to Eternia’s natural hum of magic, she punched the circle with a chocked sob. Her fist smudging the intricate glyphs and sigils. 

“Anything?” Keldor asked anyway, already knowing the answer was ‘no’. He was searching and combing through books and research and found nothing, she had been trying to magically locate their son, or even pull him home via magic and turned up nothing. 

When Lyn lifted her head, the glare she gave him could have curdled milk. A sharp, scathing look. As if she were trying to impale him with her eyes. “Anything with you?”

He couldn’t meet her eyes when his own answer was ‘no’.

She turned away from him with a hmph. “Then why are you here?”

Keldor began to take a step into the room, but Lyn flashed him another dagger look. He remained outside. “Lyn, I just-“ But he cut himself off, unsure of what he even wanted to say. Finally, he cleared his throat. “I apologize for disturbing you, Princess. Rest assured, it will not happen again. If you’ll excuse me, my father has summoned me.”

He turned around fast enough to make his cape flair out behind him, the fabric almost smacking his brother in the face. Keldor moved so quickly fleeing his wife’s scornful gaze on his back, that Randor had to sprint to catch up with him. 

“Are you okay?” He asked, trying to keep his voice a whisper while power-walking to keep up. 

Without even pausing in his step, Keldor turned his head to give his brother a sideways glare. His only child was mysteriously kidnapped from his bedroom. His bedroom in the palace in the capitol city. From a place that was supposed to be the most secure on the planet. A Prince was kidnapped from his home. The Guard and the Masters could not find a trace of the boy or his kidnapper, or even produce a body to at least give some kind of closure as to what happened to him. Keldor’s only child was taken from him and he didn’t even know how! 

No. Keldor was not okay. 

Out loud, he said, “I am doing exactly as I have done during the war, brother. I am managing. That is our job. We manage.”

Randor opened his mouth to reply, then closed it again having rethought what he was going to say. He meant to ask if Keldor and his wife were okay. Try as he might to deny it at every turn, Randor knew that his brother was in love with Evelyn, and she blamed him for his inaction in dealing with Malkyn’s night terrors sooner. She was holding him responsible for their son’s disappearance. On top of the loss of his child, the guilt he must feel over his inaction, and the anxiety over trying to recover him, Keldor and Evelyn could not lean on each other for comfort or support. They could not share their grief. 

But now was not the time to argue with Keldor that he did, in fact, love his wife. 

Instead, Randor just patted his brother on the shoulder. “You’re a good manager.”

Keldor pulled away from the touch. “Father will scold us both if he sees you coddling me.”

They had reached the throne room. 

King Miro was seated atop the dais. There were no audiences planned for today, which meant that this meeting was just for Keldor. He stopped three steps from the stairs and bowed to his father. “You summoned me, Your Majesty.”

“You took your sweet time.” Miro commented, glaring down at his eldest son. 

“I wanted to check in on Princess-Consort Evelyn.” Keldor offered as explanation. “She has not been taking the disappearance of Prince Malkyn well and I-“

“I was not asking for an excuse.” Miro cut him off. “Grovel to your woman on your own time, Keldor. When the throne summons you, you answer right away. The throne of Eternia must take priority over everything else.” With a sigh, Miro leaned back in his chair. “This is actually why I summoned you.”

“Father?” Keldor lifted his head, but did not stand up. He remained kneeling three steps from the foot of the stairs. 

“I have not given you leave to rise, Keldor.” Miro snapped. 

Keldor lowered his head back down. 

“The throne of Eternia is the priority of this family.” Miro continued. “Its stability, its strength, and its continuation. There must be a stable line to continue the monarchy.” Miro paused to let the importance really sink in before continuing. “Which is why I’m reliving you of your duties and position as my heir. From this day, and moving forward, Randor is Crown Prince and my Heir Apparent. You may assist him in this capacity, but you will no longer be King after me.”

“What!” Keldor didn’t just lift his head, he sprang to his feet. Fuck being given leave to rise! “But I’m older! I’ve been preparing to take the throne since I could walk! All Randor’s ever done is take up space and fuck an alien!”

Miro also stood, irritated with Keldor’s reaction and matching the younger man’s anger with anger of his own. “Randor’s line is secure. He has a living heir, and a spare. So that if one is lost, the other can continue, and the monarchy will endure.”

Behind Keldor, Randor fidgeted. He did not like either of his children being described as ‘a spare’. As if they were just moving parts, cogs in a machine to be replaced when needed, and not darling and precious little infants that he and his wife cherished. 

“I have an heir!” Keldor reminded his father. 

“Where is he?” Miro demanded. “You don’t know. He could be dead for all you know. Your line is ended, Keldor.” 

“I can have another!” Keldor insisted. 

“Can you?” Miro shot back. “As I recall, it took quite a bit of magical intervention for you to conceive.”

Because Keldor was a half-breed, hybrid. The product of parents from two different species interbreeding. Humans and Gar were similar enough that they could breed with each other, but the products of those unions rarely managed to produce offspring of their own. Keldor was a rarity among people of his particular genetic background. Even if he and Lyn did everything exactly the same, there was no guarantee they would be able to produce a second child. 

“The scouts we sent to the Dark Hemisphere haven’t reported back yet!” Keldor tried continuing to argue. “My son might be found yet, if you were willing to wait just a little bit longer, I-“

“The scouts we sent to the Dark Hemisphere are never going to return.” Miro cut him off again. “It is the Dark Hemisphere, they’re most likely already dead. Eaten by Snakemen, or whatever other horrors lurk in that hellish wasteland. If Malkyn was there, he would not be found alive.”

“You’re wrong!” Keldor snarled. 

“I am being practical.” Miro informed him. “You will assist your brother in whatever capacity he needs during this transition, and, after my death, you’ll help him then too. As a Councilor.”

“This is unacceptable!” Keldor roared. 

“You are not in a position to accept anything.” Miro reminded him. “I am King and this is my ruling. Take whatever time you need to adjust to your new position, but Randor will be King after me. You can either continue to be involved in the monarchy and help your brother while he rules, or else you will be provided with an estate and an income and removed from this city like Stefan.”

Keldor growled, an almost feral growl that sounded like something that should be coming out of Panthor’s throat, not him. For half a moment it looked like Keldor was going to continue arguing and Randor braced himself to bear witness to a shouting match between his father and brother. They could get very loud. Sometimes his ears still rang from some of the arguments he witnessed when Keldor was a teenager. 

But then Keldor spun on his heels. So fast his cape billowed out behind him. Keldor stomped out of the throne room without saying another word. 

Randor looked up at his father to see if the old man had anything to say to him. When Miro said nothing, Randor followed his brother out.

Keldor was already at the lift by the time Randor exited the throne room, and he did not hold the doors for his brother. The lift shut, almost on Randor’s nose and Keldor went up alone. 

Lyn was no longer in Malkyn’s bedroom when Keldor got back to the residential floor. Instead, he found her in their own bedroom. 

Packing a travel bag. 

“Are we going somewhere?” He asked.

“I am going to see my father.” She answered. “You can do what you like.”

A new stab of anxiety assailed him. Had father informed her of his fall from power already? Was she leaving him because he could no longer give her the things he promised her? Wealth, power, a throne, to rule the world. That was their agreement. Evelyn held up her end of the bargain. Now, Keldor could no longer deliver on his end, so she had no further use for him. 

But he needed her. 

In that exact moment. Still hurting and nursing the guilt over their son’s disappearance, then fast on the heels of the tragic loss of their child, to have his birthright stripped from him. He could not lose her too. 

“Lyn, please, I need you.” Keldor’s voice was barely more than a croaked whisper. “My father just-“

“I don’t care about your asshole father!” She snapped, cutting him off. Her back was too him and Lyn even refused to turn around and look at him. “Your father has been nothing but unpleasant from the moment I set foot in Eternos. He’s always either dismissing me outright, or else treating me like your breeding stock. And yet, he doesn’t seem to care when the result of our breeding is kidnapped from the middle of his own home!”

Keldor’s knee-jerk reaction most of the time when she registered her dislike of his father, was to defend the man without pause or question. But, in this exact moment, he agreed with her. King Miro did not appear to care that his eldest grandchild was kidnapped. His quarter-Gar grandson. He didn’t even seem all that alarmed that it was from his own home, which they all expected to be safe and secure. 

His body feeling inexplicably heavy, Keldor found himself sitting down on their bed without making the conscious decision to. He just couldn’t stand up anymore. He felt overwhelmed. Maybe… maybe what Lyn was always telling him was true. Maybe Miro didn’t hold much regard for the blue members of his House. Maybe… maybe his father didn’t love him.

“And you’re no better.” Lyn added, pulling him out of his thoughts. 

“I have never treated you like breeding stock!” He shouted. He wasn’t even sure why he was shouting. Keldor was just so wound up. Too much was happening. Too much was going on. He did not have enough time to process one thing before the next thing hit him. 

His son was taken from them, his father was stripping him of his birthright, his wife was leaving him! 

“No.” She agreed. Keldor never treated her like she was anything less than what she was: his partner, his equal. “But the way your father treats you is the exact same way you treat- -treated- our son. His disappearance is as much your fault as it is whatever phantasm that took him.” 

“How so?” Keldor’s head was pounding and there was a pressure behind his eyes that he was shocked to realize might be tears. He was close to crying. After he spent five years lecturing his son that a Prince did not cry. Keldor was just one wrong word away from starting to sob. He cleared his throat and massaged the corners of his eyes. Lyn still wasn’t looking at him, she wouldn’t see. 

“It wasn’t ‘ma’ma’ Malkyn cried when he would come into our room at night, fleeing his Unnamed wizard.” She reminded him. “It was ‘pa’pa’. He wanted you, Keldor. He wanted his father to protect him. For whatever reason, you were his favorite parent. I don’t know why, you don’t deserve it. But you turned him away every time. Dismissed his insistence that his night terror was real. Told him to nut-up and shut-up. As far as I’m concerned, you’re an accomplice to my baby being taken.”

Keldor tried to take in a breath, wanting to insist that she was wrong. He would never knowingly place his son and heir in danger. 

But a bit of her words rang true, and in fact, was something he had been thinking himself almost since Malkyn was taken. That it was somehow his fault. Through his inaction. His bad advice. His poor parenting skills. His inability to connect with his own child on even a superficial level. His insistence that his son’s fears were not real. 

Malkyn’s disappearance proved them very, very real. 

Keldor’s throat felt tight. He realized if he tried to speak, his voice would crack and she would know that he was about to cry. 

His eyes fell on Lyn’s bedside table. Seeing one of Malkyn’s toys. One of the articulated cat action figures she gave him for his birthday. It was the Dylinx one, Malkyn’s favorite of all the big cats of Eternia. The figure was molded in purple plastic and looked like the spitting image of Panthor. Keldor reached over and plucked the toy from the able. It even still held the colored pencil Malkyn put in its mouth. A vivid jewel-blue, almost the same color as their skin. Keldor wondered what his son had been drawing. He was never shown any pages after the boy was carried to bed. 

Running a thumb over the plastic, Keldor wondered if he should have allowed Malkyn around Panthor more often. Panthor was his steed and his familiar. He might be a dangerous predator, a detail that would make him a hazard to an average toddler. But Malkyn was Keldor’s son, as Keldor’s familiar Panthor should not have been a danger to him. Keldor was foolish to be so afraid of his own animal harming his child. Maybe he should have even had Panthor sit as sentry in the boy’s room. Keep the Unnamed wizard away at night. 

Should have… should have… should have…

There was so much he should have done. 

Lyn pulled a leather bound book off a shelf and he noted that it was not a magical tome but a photo album. That struck him as an odd thing to take if she was just going to visits her father for some advice. How long did she think she’d be gone? “When-“ his throat tightened, he tried again, “When will you be back?”

She paused, stuffing the album in her travel bag. It was not a large bag. She was not taking very much. Certainly, not enough to sustain a Princess on a long journey. But a photo album was something someone took when they were going to be gone a long time. …or else not planning to come back at all. She resumed stuffing the album into her bag without answering. 

“Lyn?” He pressed. “When will you be back? You are coming back, aren’t you?”

With an abrupt yank on the draw strings, Evelyn cinched her travel bag shut and slung it over her back. 

Finally, she turned around to glare at him. Saw that he was holding Malkyn’s toy, and crossed the space to yank it out of his hands. He didn’t deserve to hold her son’s toys. He didn’t even deserve to look at them. Evelyn was never really very interested in motherhood before she had Malkyn, but it was a requirement to be Queen, so she had a child. Her one child. And Keldor did everything but hand her child off to his kidnapper himself. 

She packed the Dylinx action figure and its colored pencil in an outside pocket of her travel bag. 

“I can’t be around you right now.” Lyn informed him. “I don’t know when I’ll see you again. But you promised me a throne. I still want to rule the world. I upheld my end of our bargain, so I will be coming back to collect what I’m owed.” She wiped her hand across her eyes, wiping away tears of her own. “But when we reunite, I want you to understand. While we might remain legally married, I will not be welcoming you back into my bed. We will not be lovers. We will not be fuck-buddies. I will not bear any more children for you. I am not your woman. I am your debt collector. And, Keldor, you’ve run up a very large bill.”

She left. 

Slamming their -his- bedroom door behind her. 

Keldor didn’t know how long he stood there, staring at the closed door. For some reason it was so hard to breath. He heard more than felt himself panting, his breaths loud in his ears. His heart was hammering against his ribcage, thumping so fast he feared it might burst from his chest. 

Even on the battle fields of the Great Unrest, Keldor never felt this irrationally distressed. So overcome with feeling and sensations that he could not think. His mind was racing and not a single thought was coherent. His head hurt and the pressure behind his eyes was back, and this time he did not try and massage it away. 

Grabbing a pillow, Keldor bit it so that he did not have to hear his own sobs. He pressed the heels of his hands into his eyes so that he did not have to feel his tears run down his face. 

He had been trying to appear strong and unmovable to please his own father for so many years that Keldor suddenly realized… he had no idea how to cry. 

He didn’t remember laying down, but Keldor was stretched out on their -his- bed, laying on his belly, when Randor knocked on the door. 

“Keldor…?” He called through the wood. “Are you okay? Can I come in?”

Randor opened the door without being given an invitation and crossed the space to sit on the edge of the bed. 

Keldor moved his legs, shrinking away from his brother. His voice was tinged with shame on top of everything else he was feeling when he croaked into his pillow, “Don’t look at me.”

“I wish I could tell you it’ll be okay.” Randor began. “But I honestly can’t even imagine what you’re going through right now. I just- if Adam and Adora were taken from me- or even just one of them- I think- I don’t- I don’t think I know what I’d do. My children are the most precious things in the world to me and I know you had trouble bonding with Malkyn, but I also know that you loved him. In your own constipated way. He was your son. If my children ever-“

“I don’t wanna hear about your fucking children!” Keldor growled into the pillow his face was already buried him. “Your children are the reason father is taking my crown from me! Because you have children and my child was taken from me!”

Randor sucked in a breath, realizing that he did not actually know how to comfort his brother. It wasn’t just that he couldn’t imagine losing one of his children, it was that their father also never gave them any examples of how men were supposed to offer comfort and emotional support to other men. It was a cold House that Miro kept. 

“I just wanted- what I meant to say-“ He began and then aborted a couple of attempts to explain to Keldor that he was there for him. In whatever capacity he needed. 

“I get it.” Keldor growled, still talking into his pillow. “You just had your children. You’re still so giddy. Sorry my child disappearing is putting such a damper on your happiness. But now you get to be King too!”

Then Keldor froze. His hysterical, grief-slogged brain drawing a conclusion. 

“That’s not what I’m saying at all!” Randor tried to clarify. “I’m just saying-“

Keldor sat up, the blue skin around his eyes purple and puffy. He glared at his brother. A murderous glare that -previously- Keldor only reserved for his enemies on the battlefield. Randor hadn’t seen Keldor look at anyone that way since the Great Unrest ended. He certainly did not know what to think of his brother glaring at him like that. 

“My child disappeared… conveniently soon after your children were born.” Keldor announced, voice deceptively calm. It was a kind of misleading calm. Like a placid water surface that hid frigid dangers below. 

“What?” Randor blinked at him. Was his brother implying… what he thought he was implying?

“And now you get to be King…” Keldor continued. He crawled out of bed and stood. 

A chill ran down Randor’s spine. His sense of danger, that had been fine-tuned in the war was churning in the back of his head. Trying to warn him. But the only person in the room was Keldor and Keldor was his brother. Sure, he was going through something right now- a lot of somethings right now, but his brother wasn’t a danger to him. 

Then, without warning, Randor got the wind knocked out of him when he was hit by some kind of magical force. He was lifted up off the bed and thrown against the wall where he was pinned up off the ground by a circle of glowing magical power. 

Gasping to catch his breath, Randor blinked at his brother. Disbelieving that Keldor had just attacked him. 

Keldor stood on the other side of the room. His arms raised, his hands glowing. “Did you do something to my child so you could be King!?”

“What!?” Randor was shocked and appalled by the accusation. The very idea that he could harm his nephew! He loved his nephew! Hell! Randor was more of a father to Malkyn than the boy’s own father! (Not that he would say that to Keldor.)

“Did you arrange for my son to ‘disappear’ so that you could be King?” Keldor repeated. 

One hand he kept up, holding the restraining spell that was keeping Randor immobile and suspended off the floor. The other arm, he extended out to the side, palm open, as if waiting to be handed something. 

Randor heard a rattle of the weapon’s rack against the far wall and looked to see Keldor’s double-bladed great sword had freed itself from its place on the rack and flew through the air to his brother’s hand. 

“Keldor, what are you-“

“Where is my son, Randor!?” Keldor’s eyes looked wild and half mad. 

“I don’t know!” Randor insisted. He tried to struggle against the restraining spell he was trapped in. He’d seen his brother use it before, interrogating prisoners during the war. It was a holding spell, but he could constrict it to squeeze and crush the prisoner if he wanted to. "I know as much as you! You probably know more than me since you’re all into magic!”

Sword in one hand, still holding Randor trapped in the spell with the other hand, Keldor crossed the room to his brother. 

Randor saw the twin blades of that great sword, glinting in the light streamlining in thorugh the window and he struggled harder against the spell. Keldor was his big brother, Keldor wouldn’t hurt him. …Right? Keldor was mad with grief and not in his right mind right now. Randor didn’t actually know what Keldor would do. 

“Where is my son!?” Keldor demanded again. 

He lifted the sword. 

Randor took a breath and braced himself to feel cold metal slice into him and hoped his brother wasn’t going to cut off anything vital. 

Then the door to the room opened. 

The wood passing though the edge of the magical ring holding him, interrupting the flow of energies. 

Randor dropped to the floor just as Keldor’s sword came down where one of his hands used to be, probably intending to cut off a few fingers or even the whole hand. The blades sank into the wall instead and got stuck, and Randor looked up at his savior. 

A startled and confused looking maid who had just come in to tiny up the room. They saw Princess-Consort Evelyn leave and it was the middle of the day, so they were not expecting Prince Keldor to be in. They certainly weren’t expecting to walk in on Prince Keldor apparently crying to murder Prince Randor!

The servant dropped the neatly folded bundle of fresh linens they were carrying and dashed from the room, not wanting to get mixed up in the brothers’ sibling rivalries. 

Randor decided they had the right idea and wasn’t too far behind, running out of the room after them while Keldor was still pulling his sword out of the wall. 

“Get back here, Randor!” He heard Keldor’s voice shouting after him. “I’m not finished with you! Where’s my son!? What’ve you done with him!?”

Randor stopped at the lift, pushing the button frantically to summon the lift car to take him downstairs, or upstairs, or anywhere other than this floor with his brother chasing after him with a giant sword. 

Keldor’s running stomps were so loud, they echoed through the corridor, interrupted only by the click of metal as Keldor snapped the blades apart to make two separate swords. 

Randor pressed the lift button harder and faster. 

Then gave up on the lift and dove for the stairs instead. He didn’t look behind him, but he still heard Keldor charging after him, the metal of the sword blades scraping every other step as he ran. 

Randor pushed open the very next door he saw and came out on one of the inner walls. 

Keldor burst out soon after him, jumped up on the rampart and sprinted to get a head of his brother. 

Skidding to halt, Randor spun to avoid the twin blades bearing down on him. He lost his balance and fell flat on his ass, then rolled to keep dodging his brother’s swings of his swords. It occurred to Randor then that Keldor might actually being trying to kill him. 

“Keldor, what has come over you?” He gasped out in between dodging his brother’s attacks. 

Keldor’s eyes were wild, his hair whipping around his ears, flying in his face. Making him look feral or rabid. Even during the Great Unrest in the hot spray of battle, Keldor never looked so uncontrollably… berserk. 

Keldor jumped down from the rampart, almost on top of his brother. 

In a flash of heated adrenaline, Randor saw an opening when his brother stuck his landing. He lanced out with one leg, kicking at Keldor’s arm. The hand dropped the sword it was holding, giving Randor the opportunity to climb back to his feet. 

“Keldor, please, what you’re going through,” he once again tried to reason with him, “we can deal with it together.”

“You killed my son so you could steal my crown!” Keldor snarled. He left his dropped sword on a floor and swung at Randor with the one he still held. “And what's worse, you tried to convince me I was the one tormenting my son! You brought this on yourself!”

Instead of dodging this time, Randor charged in close, ducking under his brother’s arm and grabbing his wrist. Randor twisted his brother’s arm until the stress forced him to drop the second sword. Keldor was now completely disarmed. “Now, will you please-“

He didn’t get to finish whatever he was going to say though, because Keldor did not stop. He did not pause. He did not relent. His was disarmed and weaponless, but he was still murderous. 

Keldor closed both his hands around Randor’s throat. “You did this!”

Randor struggled. Trying to free himself, Rabndor lifted both feet and tried to kick his brother off himself. But Keldor refused to let go. He held Randor in a death grip. Randor couldn’t breath. He tried to gasp but his throat wouldn’t open. The corners of his vision started to cloud. Keldor really was trying to kill him. 

Keldor was going to kill him! 

Then, his ears barely registering it, Randor heard an odd THUNK. 

Keldor’s hands vanished from his throat, and Randor gasped, air flooding his chest. 

His vision was still a little blurry and he shook his head to clear it. Randor didn’t even know that someone was supporting him until he looked up into the face of Duncan. 

Confused, Randor looked down. Keldor was laying at their feet, unconscious. 

“Duncan, wha- what just happened?” 

“I was going to ask you the same question, Your Highness.” The Guard informed him. “I was just on my regular patrol when I came upon Prince Keldor trying to strangle you.”

So, Duncan ran up and knocked Keldor unconscious. Duncan hit the Crown Prince- a Prince, Keldor was not Crown Prince anymore- Duncan hit a Prince of Eternia. Under any other circumstances, that would have been a death sentence for the Guard. But in this case… “You saved my life.”

“I was just doing my job.” Duncan assured him. “Uh… part of doing my job is that I have to put this in my report.”

Randor looked down at Keldor, lying unconscious at their feet. He was just going through a rough time right now. Randor was sure he didn’t actually want to kill him. He was just overcome and not thinking right. “You’ll tell my father?”

“Not the King, You Highness. Dekker.” The Guard corrected him. “He is my superior. But Dekker will probably tell the King.”

Kneeling down, Randor brushed a strand of ebony hair out of his brother’s face. Father would not be lenient with him for the attempted murder of the -new- Crown Prince.


	7. Beginning in the End

From the outside, it looked like nothing more than a gigantic ram’s head rising up out of the sands. As one drew closer, they would see a gate concealed just below the ram’s chin. 

That was the whole of what was visible of the ruins of Zalesia from the outside. 

Past the gate, however, one entered a series of tunnels and stairs, all leading mostly down. On the surface all Zalesia looked like was just a ram’s head gate, but the city wasn’t gone. It wasn’t swept away by the centuries and the desert’s shifting sands. The whole of the city was still there and still in one piece. It was just buried. 

Evelyn made her way through the labyrinth of tunnels, conjuring a ball of witchlight to guide her path in the dark. 

She was almost at the library when the air shifted. She felt a light breeze on her face coming up from the deeper depths of the ruins. 

A specter appeared before her. Tall, its head almost reaching up to the passage’s ceiling. A white head devoid of a face, just a blank whiteness with slight indentations where the eyes used to be, and a low slope that at one time had been his nose. The apparition was wreathed in curling mists, and held a staff. An ancient looking staff with a decorative ram’s skull atop it, the horns tinted gold and spiraling out from the sides. “Who dares trespass in the ancient and forbidden city of-“

“Hello, tata.” Lyn greeted him. 

The curling mists receded, and the specter shrank down to the average height of a human male on Eternia. His face remained non-existent and blank. Just the impression of where a face had once been, features washed away like the desert sands against stone. “Lyn? Gods be good! I never thought I’d see you again! When you left, you said you were never coming back.”

“I never planned on coming back.” She admitted. 

There was nothing for a younger person here in the ruins of Zalesia. It was a dead city. Mostly under ground with only a few structures left above the surface. There were no people aside from one immortal King, cursed to haunt it forever. There were no social activities, no night life, no other young people to interact with, nothing that would interest a teenager Lyn had been when she left, and there still wasn’t much to interest the young woman that Lyn was now. 

There was just her father. The King of Zalesia, cursed with immortality so that he may haunt the ruin forever. Eternal. Unchanging. Constant. Stable. 

Lyn needed something stable right now. 

“So much has happened, tata.” She admitted, her voice feeling a little tight. 

The Faceless One paused, studying his daughter. Evelyn had always been a strong woman, ever since the day she was born. She survived the birth that killed her mother, and she survived being taken hostage by the Snakemen when she was still just an infant barely able to support her own head. She was stubborn, and willful, and when she made up her mind about something, she rarely changed it. Digging her heels in and sticking to her word. 

Evelyn Powers was a strong woman. She was not the type to run home to daddy at the slightest upset. For her to be returning to Zalesia after being gone almost twelve years, something very significant must have happened. 

“I shall make some tea.” He announced finally. “And when you’re ready, you can tell me all about it. Or not. Whatever you need, Lyn. Would you like me to carry your bag to your room for you?”

“No. I can carry my own bag.” She replied in a tone almost the same as she used to use when she would tell him ‘gawds, tata, stop treating me like a little kid! I can do my own things!’. 

With a nod, the Faceless One vanished in a swirl of mist. 

Lyn stomped down the corridor, past the library, through several passages, and then up an entirely different flight of stairs. Finally coming to an end at the chamber that used to be her childhood bedroom. 

The Faceless One had kept it exactly as she had left it. 

Well, that was untrue. He cleaned her room. But after that, had kept it exactly as she had left it. 

One of the few chambers still partially above ground, Lyn’s bedroom had a window that opened. A magical barrier was set into the frame in place of glass to keep out dust from the desert while letting in natural light.

Dropping her travel bag on the floor, Lyn sat on her bed. It was not nearly as comfortable as the bed she shared with Keldor, but it wasn’t uncomfortable. 

Reaching into the travel bag, Lyn pulled out Malkyn’s Dylinx action figure with the colored pencil still held in its mouth. She placed it on her bedside table. 

Honestly, Lyn just wanted to lay down and take a nap. But she also knew that she needed her father’s knowledge of the older, more obscure, arcane powers of Eternia if she was going to learn anything about her son’s disappearance. For that the Faceless One needed to know that he had a grandson and that he was missing. 

Sighing to herself, Lyn pulled the photo album from her bag and went to have tea with her father. 

What used to be the throne room was also above ground. But not standing up right anymore. 

One thousand years ago, during the Preternia era, and the height of Zalesia’s power, the throne room was in a high tower with tall cathedral style windows going floor to ceiling. (Zalesian architects were big on natural light.) But the tower was toppled when the city was destroyed. The ‘throne room’ now lay on its side, its cathedral windows shattered and blown away, mixing the glass fragments with the desert sands. 

What was left of the framework, the Faceless One had covered in plaster to seal the cracks in what remained of the structure, and wove a flax canopy to cover it and shield it from the harsh desert sun. The result was a sort of shabby-chic semi-outdoor picnic area. 

The Faceless One already had a hot pot of tea steeping by the time Evelyn arrived. Pushing aside the flax shade to enter and then making sure it fell back into place to dim the bright sun. 

She sat opposite her father. What had once been the frame for the cathedral windows making a sort of step. It was lined with cushions the Faceless One had made. The Faceless One had become very crafty over the past century. Learning to plant flax, spin flax into linen, weave linen into fabrics, and sew them into all manner of things. All of Lyn’s clothes growing up were made by him, as well as her bedding, her curtains, the furniture, or whatever else a living person might need. 

The Faceless One sat opposite her on the little step made by the empty window frame. His ram’s head staff next to him, leaned against the stone. 

Her father passed her a cup of tea. It was one Lyn didn’t recognize. Made from a dark red clay that was earthy and rough. 

“I made the set myself.” The Faceless One informed her. “I finally decided it was time to do something with all the broken pottery laying around. If you grind clay pots back down into a fine powder and add water, it turns back into clay.” 

“Mm.” Lyn made a non-committal sound as response while she took a sip of her tea. She noted it was a maramia blend, a sage tea that always managed to make her feel better when she was younger. She hadn’t had maramia tea since she left. Even in Eternos with the rest of the planet at her disposal, no maramia was ever brought to her. She didn’t realize how much she missed it until she was tasting it again. It tasted like home. 

“Lyn?” Ventured the Faceless One, his voice gentle but concerned. 

She didn’t realize she was crying until he said something. Lyn set her earthenware teacup down and wiped at her cheeks. 

“Things have been very fraught recently.” After living with Keldor and his family for so long, she felt the need to explain and justify her tears, even though her father never made her feel like crying was in any way inappropriate before. “My son was kidnapped.”

The Faceless One was reaching to push a tray of dried fruits closer to her, but paused at that announcement. His head tilting up so that the featureless plain where his face used to be could stare at her. “Your- son?”

Lyn nodded. “I have a son. You have a grandson.” She passed him the album she brought with her for this exact purpose. “His name is Malkyn. I gave him a Zalesian name.”

He was still in a bit of shock from the double announcements that he was a grandfather and that his grandson was kidnapped. It was more out of reflex than interest that he took the album. The smoothed indentations where his eyes used to be remained fixed on his daughter. He knew something was wrong the moment she set foot back within the ram’s head gate, and that it had to be bad for her to come back after over a decade, and break a vow that she would never return. He just didn’t realize how bad. 

“And since you’re here with me, can I assume that you have not been able to recover him using your own powers?” He hated having to ask that question, but he did want the clarification. 

Looking at Lyn now, her countenance drawn, her cheeks already drying from her brief tears, the Faceless One thought she was taking the abduction of her child much better than he had taken her abduction as a baby. When Lyn was kidnapped as an infant, Nikolas summoned gods and razed cities (the Snakemen’s and his own), he broke ties with the Council of Elders and made deals with devils. He became a little unhinged and was fine with the prospect of burning the world to ashes so long as his baby was unharmed and returned to him. 

When Lyn’s child was kidnapped, she remained rational and came to a powerful sorcerer with centuries more knowledge and experience with Eternia’s magic than any other being on the planet (save maybe a handful of other similarly demi-immortal individuals that resided in equally remote or obscure locations). 

Lyn gave a stinted little nod of affirmative. “They put up a powerful barrier I couldn’t break through. I’ve never come up against anything so strong. Even during the Great Unrest, Marzo’s magic was powerful, but I could still combat it, especially when Keldor and I worked together. But neither Keldor or I could get into Malkyn’s room. And when the barrier was dispelled, Malkyn was gone.”

The Faceless One did not know what the Great Unrest was, or who Marzo was, or who Keldor was. But from context he assumed they were some kind of battle, and two adept sorcerers. Possibly one of them was the father of his grandchild? But no mate accompanied Lyn to Zalesia, so it was also possible that the father was not in the equation and this Keldor was just a friend or coven member. 

Who the father was, or who Lyn’s friends were wasn’t really of material importance at the moment. What was of material importance was the detail of Lyn being kept away from her child by a magic more powerful than her own. Because the Faceless One knew his daughter was very powerful. She was his daughter. She carried the blood of the Ancients. His blood. The fact that the boy was taken by something more powerful was concerning. 

“Is that all?” He asked, needing more details to figure out exactly what kind of sorcerer, monster, or other-worldly entity it might have been. “Was there any particular detail that stand out to you? Any odd sounds, a smell in the air, a flavor in your mouth when the fluctuations in the aether changed?”

Lyn pursed her lips, thinking hard. Really trying to analyze her memory of the ripples in the energies of Eternia’s magical field. 

“Friction.” She finally decided. “Friction and static. Like when I rub my foot on the carpet and then touch something there’s a shock. Or when you scrape steel against flint to make sparks. That’s what it was like.”

The Faceless One nodded, taking in the information. Friction, like something colliding with or rubbing against Eternia’s own magical field. That meant it had to be something from another dimension. The veils between worlds grinding against each other creating a charge. Not anything that originated on Eternia itself. That was even more concerning. 

“Was there anything leading up to the kidnapping?” He hated having to ask. To force his daughter to relive what was probably the worst moment in her life. But the more information she could give him, the better help he could give her in turn. 

Lyn’s eyes went a little wet and glassy again, but no tears fell this time. Her cheeks remained dry. But her voice was tight when she explained. “He had really bad nightmares. Every night. Sometimes during the day if he was alone and unsupervised, no one else around to witness. Always the same nightmare. He told Keldor that it was trying to ‘get in’ but couldn’t, and it wanted Malkyn to bring it in. Keldor’s glowing advice was to ignore it if it couldn’t get in on its own. He never really took Malkyn’s terrors seriously. I don’t think I’ll ever forgive him for that.”

That was the second time ‘Keldor’ came up. Now the Faceless One felt obligated to ask. “And Keldor is…?”

“Oh! My husband. Malkyn’s father.” Lyn explained. “You wouldn’t like him.”

Based solely off of what she just told him about Keldor, the Faceless One agreed. He did not like his daughter’s choice of husband. 

“Finish your tea.” He told her. “It’ll help settle you. When you’re strong enough, we’ll figure out what happened to young Malkyn Powers together.”

Finally, he cracked open the album she gave him. It was a shame he had to learn of his grandchild through such tragic circumstances, but he was also very excited to have a grandchild, and was practically giddy to see photos of him. 

The first picture made him pause. It was not what he was expecting. “He’s blue!”

“He’s part Gar.” Lyn set her clay teacup back on its saucer. “Is that a problem for you, tata?”

“No.” He assured her quickly. “No, it’s not a problem. I was just… not expecting it…” He paused again. “’Keldor’ is not a Gar name.”

“It’s a Plains name.” She informed him, once again sipping her tea. When the cup was empty, she reached over for the teapot and refilled it. “Keldor is from the Plains.”

He made a non-committal noise to indicate he heard. Back in the Faceless One’s day, there weren’t many Gar who lived on the Plains. But that was over a thousand years ago. Who knew how groups moved and migrated in that time. He turned his attention back to the album and pictures of his grandson. 

Malkyn was very cute. With the same white hair that the Faceless One had when he was still Nikolas Powers, and cute little pointed ears poking between the snowy mop of locks. Round cheeks and a slightly pudgy baby-face. A close up shot showed that he had Lyn’s violet eyes, the same eyes her mother had as well. And there were other features the Faceless One did not recognize, probably coming from Keldor’s side of the family. Either way, Malkyn was a very good looking kid. 

Lyn drained her second helping of tea and set the saucer down next to the tea pot, deciding she was done. 

“There is one more thing.” She announced. “Keldor is a descendent of King Grayskull, which means that Malkyn is a descendent of King Grayskull. I thought that might be significant.”

A child that was the descendent of not one but two of the Ancients. Yes. That was significant. A child that wasn’t just a descendent of multiple Ancients, but specifically King Grayskull, that was very, very significant. The bloodline of Grayskull was directly linked to the well of power at the heart of Eternia. 

Closing the album, the Faceless One looked back up at his daughter. He no longer had brows, but there was a subtle little lift of alarm to the indentations where his eyes used to be. The faceless equivalent of a look of astonishment. Or concern. Or a combination of the two. Even having grown up with him, it was still maddeningly hard to read the featureless plain where his face used to be. 

“You said this thing, whatever it was, wanted your son to bring it.” He asked to clarify. And Lyn described the sensation in the aether as a rubbing or a scraping of two powers against each other. The static of friction. “Whatever it is needs the power of the Ancients and the blood of Grayskull to bring it into our world?”

Lyn visibly trembled at that. 

“His blood!” Lots of magic workings used blood in them. Usually no more than a drop or two. A prick of a flinger, or a cut of the thumb. Nothing permanently damaging or life threatening. But still, at hearing the word ‘blood’ Lyn’s mind could not help but jump to ‘sacrifice’. “Don’t tell me it’s too late and he’s already dead!”

“You would know it if he were dead.” The Faceless One assured her. “The same way I would know if you were dead. There is a mystical link between parents and children that even distance and separation cannot sever.” 

This assertion did comfort Lyn, but not much. “Not dead. Just trapped in another dimension like Despondos.”

“There’s more dimensions than just Despondos.” He reminded her. 

Despondos was just the most well know. But there was also the Timeless Dimension, the Realm of Monsters, the Dark Dimension, Anti-Eternia, and the Nameless Dimension. 

“I will search them all.” The Faceless One promised her. “But, Lyn,” he also needed her to be prepared for the worst, “I cannot leave this city, that includes other dimensions. I can only search as far as I can See. There’s no guarantee I’ll find my grandson. There is a chance you might not learn what happened to him at all.”

…

_-They might not learn what happened to Malkyn, but you will-_

“I’m tired of hearing about this Unnamed wizard, Malkyn!” Pa’pa snapped, glaring down at Malkyn with a level of harshness that made the boy want to shrink away. “You are about to be five. You’re not a baby anymore. You are a Prince, and it’s time you started acting like one! Don’t bother me with this stupid nightmare of yours again!”

Pa’pa stomped out of the room. 

Pa’pa said not to bother him, so the next time the Unnamed One appeared in his room, Malkyn went to find Uncle Randor instead. Uncle Randor was really nice and always made time for him! 

Uncle Randor and Aunt Marlena were even already awake when Malkyn arrived at their suite of rooms in the residential wing. Each one holding a screaming, crying baby in their arms.

“Malkyn, I can’t play right now.” Uncle Randor informed him, speaking through a yawn as he rocked baby Adora in his arms. 

“It’s two AM, shouldn’t you be in bed?” Asked Aunt Marlena, whom had her arms full with Adam. 

“The bad wizard was in my room again.” He tried to explain to her. 

She had dark circles under her eyes and looked like she was ready to drop at any moment. The only reason she was still vertical was because neither of her twins would let anyone sleep and she could not rest until the babies were quieted down. Marlena was not in the mood to deal with a sleepless child that was not her own, and she looked it. 

She pursed her lips, not knowing what to say to her nephew. Didn’t Evelyn usually handle his nightmares? Why was he even coming to them at all?

“Tell ya what, Malkyn, you can tell me all about your nightmare in the morning.” Randor announced, still rocking the screaming Adora in his arms. “But right now you gotta go back to your room. Okay?”

Shifting the baby in his arms, Randor freed one arm to lean down and gently steer his nephew out of the room. 

Then slammed the door shut behind him. 

After the door was close, Malkyn heard Aunt Marlena add a comment. He was sure he wasn’t supposed to hear. But his pointed ears caught more than Randor or Marlena’s curved ones. 

“That kid is so weird!” She said. “I don’t understand why Keldor and Lyn aren’t doing anything. If this were Earth, he’d be sent to a fleet of therapists.”

Malkyn didn’t know what a ‘fleet of therapists’ was, but just from the tone of voice, it sounded scary. But even more scary, was that his aunt thought he should be sent away. ‘To a fleet of therapists’. How far away was Therapists? Why did he have to join their fleet? Did joining Therapists’ navy prevent bad wizards from disturbing him at night? Or was the Therapists’ fleet just where people on Earth sent their kids that kept bothering them at night?

Either way, Malkyn did not like it. 

Reluctantly, he returned to his own room. 

The Unnamed One was gone by the time he got back. So, Malkyn crawled back into bed. But he didn’t sleep. 

As his father was constantly reminding him, he was a Prince. He needed to be brave. He needed to face his enemies head on. Confront them and overcome them. Malkyn remained awake for the rest of the night, keeping watch in case the Unnamed One returned. Only managing to fall asleep once the sun began to rise. 

Malkyn didn’t get more than a couple hours of sleep before the maids and his nanny came in to wake him for the day’s tasks. 

It was like that for many nights. Malkyn, remining awake. Awaiting the Unnamed One to appear. 

“…will free me.”

And this time when he did appear, Malkyn confronted him. 

“Why?” He demanded. 

“You will- what?” The Unnamed One paused, staring at the child through a magical rift. Looking like a tear, like when Malkyn ripped his tunics playing, only the torn edges were glowing with powerful magic. In the middle of that glow was the bad wizard without a name. The Unnamed One. “With the blood of your Ancients.”

Sitting sitting on his bed, his back pressed all the way up against his headboard, and hugging his little stuffed Dylinx to give his strength, Malkyn asked, “How’m I supposed to get their blood?”

Malkyn didn’t even know any ancients. 

The Unnamed One regarded the boy a moment longer. Almost as if he never expected the child to actually engage with him. “With your blood. You carry the blood of your Ancients.”

“But I need my blood.” Malkyn informed him. Now more confused than scared. He didn’t understand. 

“You-“ But whatever the Unnamed One was going to say was cut off. The tear in the aether of Eternia’s natural magic field repairing itself and pushing the Unnamed One back out. 

As Malkyn told his father, he couldn’t come all the way in. 

His sleepless nights made him irritable during the days. Malkyn was impatient, short tempered, and fussy. 

He didn’t want to stand for a long time while the tailors or the cobblers took his measurements for his new clothes and boots. He didn’t care that he was old enough now to be dressing like a kid instead of a baby. He just wanted to take a long nap to rest after being up all night with his Unnamed visitor. 

Pa’pa happened to be around to witness one of these outbursts and he said something mean about Malkyn wetting himself. Pa’pa was always saying mean thing. More and more, Malkyn was getting the feeling that pa’pa didn’t actually like him very much. 

He barely ever picked Malkyn up, and rarely ever held him. There were a few times, sure. But Malkyn could count them all on one hand. Ma’ma was always picking him up and carrying him around. And Uncle Randor was almost never seen without one of his new babies in his arms. Malkyn was beginning to notice that most parents held and hugged their kids. But pa’pa almost never held him, and he sure as heck never hugged him! 

It was almost as if pa’pa didn’t even want him. 

And at night, the Unnamed One was still coming to visit him. Trying to get Malkyn to use his blood to pull the other worldly sorcerer into Eternia. 

“Why do you wanna come here anyway?” He demanded one night. 

And, again, the Unnamed One paused. As if he weren’t expecting this child to actually engage with him. To ask him questions. To want to know. Originally, the Unnamed One was drawn to Malkyn by the power in his blood. When he found that the being he was drawn to was just a child, he didn’t expect much from him. The vast majority of younglings he had encountered over his lifespan were for the most part useless dependents. And for many nights, that was how this one had seemed too. 

But then something had changed and now this mostly passive child had become bold and started asking questions. 

“Everyone here is mean!” Malkyn announced, speaking more to the room than to the Unnamed One. “Or if they’re not mean, then they don’t want me around.”

Uncle Randor wasn’t mean to him. Uncle Randor was nice. But since Aunt Marlena had his babies, he never seemed to have time for Malkyn anymore. He had his real son and his real daughter. He didn’t have to borrow Keldor’s son anymore. 

If the Unnamed One was going to reply to this, he did not get the chance to. The rift closed up again and the Unnamed One was once again pushed out of Eternia. 

The day of Malkyn’s fifth birthday finally dawned and it started off with the irritable child being pulled from his bed by an impatient nanny who had a whole long list of tasks to complete in order to get him ready for his party. 

He was bathed and then dressed in his new clothes that he was still getting used to and was uncomfortable because of it. Then his hair was pulled back, so tight that it made his head hurt. After that was posing for a royal publicity shoot and portraits with the entire royal family, including his grandfather whom scowled with disapproval of… something every time the camera wasn’t on him. 

Finally, the party started. 

But Malkyn still wasn’t allowed to have fun. He had to sit in a little kid-sized throne, in the hot sun, and act happy and excited, while people he didn’t know gave him things he didn’t want as presents. What was he supposed to do with bolts of velvet? That was grown-up stuff!

At least ma’ma and Uncle Randor gave him things he actually liked. 

Malkyn wanted to go play with them right away, but they made him stay there and wait until every random stranger that was invited to his party presented him with their unwanted gift. 

Finally, he was allowed to get down off his play-sized throne and go play with his new action figures and color with his new pencils. That was all Malkyn really wanted to do since there were no other kids his own age to play with and all the grown-ups wanted to hand out with the other grown-ups.

Pa’pa was talking with Aunt Marlena who had one of her babies in her arms and one of her boobies out. Ma’ma was shouting orders at the serving staff, making sure things for the party got done in the right order. 

Uncle Randor did come over and sit with him for a bit. But he was carrying the other baby, and most of his attention was focused on that. 

“What’re you drawing?” Randor asked, and he sounded interested. But his eyes were focused on the baby in his arms as he rocked the swaddled bundle. 

“Donno yet.” Malkyn informed him. He had pulled the blue pencil out of the box, but he wasn’t sure what he actually wanted to do with it. 

Shifting Adam in his arms, Randor tapped a finger on the paper, tracing out a shape. “Well, you’ve got the blue out, what if you drew a river? The Plains are full of rivers.”

Malkyn thought. He tapped the pencil on the table. It was almost the same shade as his own skin. “I was gonna draw pa’pa again.” He said. “He liked the one I did of him on the throne. And pa’pa’s been so mad at me about the wizard. I thought if I made something nice for him he wouldn’t be mad anymore.”

Randor heaved a heavy sigh, and placed his free hand on the boy’s shoulder. “Malkyn, you don’t have to worry so much about pleasing your dad.” He insisted. “I grew up with him, and I can promise you, he will always find something to be unhappy about. It’s not your job to make your dad happy, and I promise you, you dad does like you. He just doesn’t know how to show it ‘cause he spent so much of his life being dissatisfied with everything else around him.”

This explanation did not make sense to the mind of a five-year-old. 

Instead of commenting on whatever weird thing Uncle Randor was trying to explain, Malkyn placed the colored pencil in the mouth of his new action figure, and turned the cat’s articulated head so that the tip of the pencil scrapped across the paper. “He’s drawing now.”

“What’s he drawing?” Randor asked, not missing a beat and just rolling with the child’s make-believe play. 

Malkyn kept wiggling the articulated head so that the pencil marked up the page in messy and uneven dots and squiggles. 

“He’s drawing rain.” The boy announced. “Dylinx aren’t from the Plains, they come from the Vine Jungle and it’s always raining there. That’s what he knows how to draw.”

“Well, I think he’s very talented.” Randor smiled at his nephew. 

But then the baby in his arms started to cry. Randor stood to leave. 

“I’m sorry, Malkyn, looks like Adam’s hungry.” He apologized to his nephew. “I gotta find his mom to feed him.”

Uncle Randor got up and left, and Malkyn was once again left alone. The grown-ups in his life caring more about the newer, cuter babies than about him. 

Malkyn scribbled with his new pencils, not really drawing anything specific, while the grown-ups of Eternos danced, and laughed, and drank around him. Until finally, his nanny came to collect him and take him back upstairs for his bedtime. 

As he was leaving, he looked for his parents in the crowd. Malkyn saw his pa’pa bringing a glass of wine to ma’ma. Probably toasting the fact that they didn’t have to deal with him anymore that day. Malkyn was coming to the conclusion that his parents didn’t actually want him. Uncle Randor didn’t want him anymore either, not now that he had his own babies. Nobody wanted Malkyn, it seemed. Nobody except the Unnamed One who still showed up in his room every night. 

The Unnamed One didn’t just want him, the Unnamed One needed him. 

That night, when the air crackled with power, and Malkyn’s hair stood on end from the static of one dimension colliding with another, he climbed out of bed. 

“You will-“

“What if I went to your world with you.” Malkyn asked the Unnamed One before they could even get out their usual opening line. 

The Unnamed One paused. “What?”

“Nobody wants me here.” Malkyn informed the specter. “Nobody likes me. But you want me. Can I go live at your house with you?”

The Unnamed One just stared at him. This was not a suggestion he expected. This was not a suggestion he expected at all. Originally, the Unnamed One just wanted him for his blood. A particularly potent combination of Eternia’s Ancients. But now he was being offered not just the blood, but the whole person. A child that could be raised and trained to be a powerful sorcerer, and if he was raised and trained by the Unnamed One, he would be loyal to the Unnamed One. 

Perhaps it was worth delaying his plans and designs for Eternia to have a minion with such a great potential for power loyal to him. 

Reaching out, the Unnamed One commanded, “Give me your hand.”

Clutching his stuffed Dylinx tight to him with one arm, Malkyn extended his other hand and pressed it to the empty gap in the tear between their worlds. There was nothing there, nothing he could see, but it felt like trying to reach through one of his light cotton bed sheets. 

The Unnamed One pressed one of his claws against Malkyn’s thumb, cutting the finger pad. Malkyn almost pulled his hand away at the pain. But as his blood dripped from the cut, the feeling of a thin sheet still separating their worlds vanished, and the Unnamed One was able to thrust his hand all the way through. He grabbed the child by the wrist and pulled him all the way through. 

The rift closed mere seconds after the boy disappeared into the rift, and his parents burst into the room to find no trace of him. 

But it would not be the last that Eternia saw of Prince Malkyn of the House of Keldor. 

…

END 


End file.
